Bill Clinton said the other day that there are two countries of which he could be head of state--Ireland and France.
If he moved there and bought a house, he said he could run for President of Ireland because of his Irish heritage. It appears, however, one of his parents would have had to have been an actual Irish citizen at the time of his birth. There is a loophole; the Irish government could issue a waiver based on Clinton's over-all Irish ancestry.
He said he could run for President of France because Arkansas was once a part of the Louisiana Purchase, and there was a loophole in French law that said that anyone who came from a territory owned by France could be a candidate, provided the candidate lived in France and spoke French.
Under Section 5 of Article 21-19 of the French civil code, citizens of states or territories over which France has ever exercised sovereignty or extended a mandate or protectorate may apply immediately for naturalization, without the normal five-year residency requirement.
The basic principle, as outlined by the French senator who proposed it at the time, was both magnanimous and somewhat pompous:
''I pray that the Senate make a generous gesture, that it tell those who come from a land which was once French, that France their mother considers them as having been her children, and that at the instant they want to return to the fold, they will be entirely welcome.''
It turns out that Bill Clinton is not really eligible to be President of France, although, until fairly recently, it was actually a possibility. Patrick Weil at the University of Paris raised the possibility of a French President Clinton in this op-ed at the New York Times on January 10, 2001, titled, "Bill Clinton: The French Years."
The French government took notice, and the loophole was subsequently closed on July 24, 2006.
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