Nat not in ‘amour’ with French style

SACRE BLEU! She may be married to a Frenchman but Oscar-winning actress Natalie Portman is no fan of his countrymen, dubbing them “rude”.

The Star Wars and Black Swan star, 35, has just returned from two years in Paris where her husband Benjamin MIllepied, 39, was working at the Paris Opera Ballet.

She is relieved to be back in Los Angeles as “lovely” Americans, she feels, are friendlier and less boot-faced than Parisians. “Everyone smiles a lot here in Los Angeles. It’s very nice,” the actress told chat-show host Jimmy Kimmel. “They’re very cool in France.”

The mother of son Aleph, five, didn’t realise she had become so accustomed to snooty French attitudes until returning to the US. “I got here and I was so surprised when you get in an elevator and someone starts a conversation.”

Natalie who has dual Israeli/ American citizenship, is no fan of French etiquette. “There are a lot of rules of politeness you have to follow,” she moaned.

“When you go in some place you have to say, ‘Bonjour’ and then you have to wait two seconds before you say anything else.” If you don’t follow this protocol, she says: “They’ll think you are super rude and then they’ll be rude to you.”

In contrast, in the US, she says: “It’s a lot looser here. You care about making the person next to you comfortable.”

In 2013 Natalie said she was interested in taking French citizenship. She’s presumably changed her mind.