One of France’s greatest chefs wants to become a British citizen after delivering a withering verdict of his home country and labelling his fellow countrymen ‘rude and pedantic’.
Albert Roux, 78, has revealed that he has applied for a British passport and insisted he want to ‘die as a Britishman.’
Mr Roux first moved to the UK as an 18-year-old in 1954, before setting up the famed Le Gavroche restaurant in London in 1967. It became the first restaurant in the UK to gain three Michelin stars.
He explained that he now travels to France ‘as little as possible’.
He explained that his application for a British passport had already been submitted and that he was exempt from taking the UK government’s citizenship test because he was over 65 and has been awarded an OBE. He now expects his application to be approved within a few weeks.
Mr Roux, father of former MasterChef host Michel Roux Jr, told the Daily Mail: ‘England is not a second home for me, it is my first home. I’m an extremely strong royalist. It is only that my birth happened to be in France.
‘My heart is British, very much so. I am waiting for my British passport, I’ve applied and it is a matter of weeks now. I want to remain in this country and I want to die in this country.
‘I came to this country when I was 18, and I always felt I was born on the wrong side of the Channel and that the children should have a British education. The kids are British in their nationality.
‘I go back to France as little as possible. I find the French as a whole very pedantic. They think they know better than anybody. In the restaurant trade most of the time they are constipated.
'The French think they have the best wine, the best food. But the British know about wine and food.
‘They don’t know how to smile and say thank you. Not all of them, but many.
‘They know this very well because the government never fail to tell them to be more friendly. You have 85 million tourists coming to France on a yearly basis. We should be far more hospitable to the people who come and spend money with us. We’re not.
Frankophobe
Frankophobe
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”
Re: Frankophobe
Why is this interesting enough to mention?
yrs,
rubato
yrs,
rubato