Sean Penn will say “bonjour” to Cannes this summer, the film festival’s organizers announced Thursday.

The 47-year-old actor/director – whose separation from his wife, Robin Wright Penn, 41, was confirmed to People on Dec. 27 – has accepted the presidency of the festival’s prestigious Palme d’Or competition.

“The Cannes Film Festival has long been in the center of discovering the new waves of filmmakers,” Penn said in a statement. “I look forward very much to participating.” As president, he’ll help select the jury and oversee the judging at the annual movie fest, running this year from May 14 to 25.

Also Thursday, the festival’s artistic director Thierry Fremaux said, “Penn represents the independent American cinema as well as a vision of America that we like.”

After three nominations, the actor finally won his best actor Oscar in 2004 for Mystic River. He also directed 2007′s critically acclaimed Into the Wild.

The self-styled Hollywood maverick (who was once married to Madonna) has never lacked for controversy. He famously paid a pre-war visit to Iraq, toured Iran in 2005 and, last year, courted controversial Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

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It’s over for Sean Penn and Robin Wright Penn — but is the actor, 47, already moving on?

Four days before she filed divorce papers in Marin County, California, on December 21, he was spotted dining on Christmas with a “very young, very attractive” brunette at San Francisco’s Café de la Presse restaurant.

“He seemed nervous and on edge,” fellow diner Rob Seide told Usmagazine.com of the actor. “He didn’t seem very happy.”

Penn originally filed divorce papers in Marin County December 7, his attorney Mindy Ross told Us, but the petition was dismissed December 18.

On December 21, Robin Wright Penn, 41, filed her own request for divorce, citing irreconcilable differences. Penn’s divorce papers listed November 30 as the date of their separation; she listed the split date as December 1.

The couple, who have been married for over 11 years, have two kids: Dylan Francis, 16, and Hopper Jack, 14.

“It was bound to happen,” added a source of their split. “He always seemed like a bachelor at heart and the kind of guy who just couldn’t be married for long.”

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Hollywood actor Sean Penn has signed on to play gay-rights icon Harvey Milk in Milk, a bio-pic directed by Gus Van Sant, Focus Features said Friday.

An activist and politician, Milk was the first openly gay man elected to public office in the United States.

In 1977, he was voted to the city supervisors’ board of San Francisco.

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Don’t ask me why, but I am oddly attracted to him.

“It’s not a real thing. I don’t live in Hollywood, I never even talk to anybody from Hollywood.” Actor SEAN PENN insists he doesn’t buy into the A-list lifestyle.

Have I mentioned how much I love Sean and Buttercup Robin-Wright Penn? They’re one of my favorite “Hollywood” couples. They have been together for sixteen years, and married for eleven. Together they have 2 kids – and unlike some celebrity parent’s we know Britney Spears they got their kids out of Hollywood, and raised them quietly.

A bit of trivia… In the 90′s Robin Wright was robbed of her vehicle at gunpoint in Santa Monica, California. Shortly after this – Sean packed his wife and young daughter up and headed out of LA.

Another tidbit… Her son Hopper Jack is named after two family friends, Dennis Hopper and Jack Nicholson. Interesting, eh?