Hollywood actor George Clooney, his wife Amal Clooney, a human rights lawyer, and their two children have been awarded French citizenship, the government said on Wednesday.

The decision was announced in the Journal Officiel, the official gazette in which French government decrees are published.

The family’s primary residence is a farm in Brignoles, in the Var department in southern France. The couple purchased the property in 2021 and have since made it their main home.

Didier Brémond, the mayor of Brignoles, told local media the move reflected Clooney’s attachment to France, describing the decision to seek citizenship as a testament to “his love for our country”.

Speaking to broadcaster BFMTV, Brémond said the Clooneys are “a very simple and very accessible family”.

“Here, he wants to live normally, and that's what he is trying to do,” he said, according to the BBC.

Clooney has previously spoken publicly about the reasons behind the family’s decision to relocate to France. In an interview with Esquire magazine earlier this year, the actor said he was “worried about raising our kids in LA, in the culture of Hollywood”.

“I don't want them to be walking around worried about paparazzi. I don't want them being compared to somebody else’s famous kids”.

“We live on a farm in FranceA good portion of my life growing up was on a farm, and as a kid, I hated the whole idea of it. But now, for them, it's like – they're not on their iPads, you know? They have dinner with grown-ups and have to take their dishes in. They have a much better life,” the actor said.

The couple’s twins, Ella and Alexander, were born in London in 2017. Amal Clooney was born in Lebanon and raised in the UK. The Journal Officiel shows she was naturalised under her maiden name, Amal Alamuddin, BBC reported.

While promoting his new film Jay Kelly, Clooney said his wife and children speak French fluently. He described his own French as “horrible”, despite attempting to learn the language using an app. “They speak French in front of me so that they can say terrible things about me to my face, and I don't know,” he told the French broadcaster Canal+.