PARIS: France's leading actor Gerard Depardieu said Sunday he is giving up his French passport after the prime minister called him "pathetic" for seeking to avoid taxes by moving to Belgium.
In an open letter to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the 63-year-old "Cyrano de Bergerac" and "Jean de Florette" film star said he had been treated unfairly after years of supporting France, and paying millions of euros in taxes.
"I am not asking to be approved of, but I could at least be respected.
"All of those who have left France have not been insulted as I have been," he said in the letter published in the weekly newspaper "Le Journal du Dimanche".
Depardieu has joined some of France's wealthiest business figures in Belgium following moves by President Francois Hollande's Socialist government to tax annual incomes above one million euros ($1.3 million) at 75 percent.
In the letter, Depardieu, who has extensive business interests including wine estates and three Paris restaurants, accused the Socialists of driving France's most talented figures out of the country.
"I am leaving because you consider that success, creation, talent, anything different, must be punished," he said.
Depardieu said that over 45 years of working and running businesses in France he had paid 145 million euros to state coffers.
"At no time have I failed in my duties. The historic films in which I took part bear witness to my love of France and its history," Depardieu said.
He started working at the age of 14 and never claimed social security, the star added.
"Who are you to judge me in this way?" he asked Ayrault.
Ayrault's comments came after it emerged that Depardieu had taken up residence in Nechin, a tiny village just over the border in Belgium, which is a favoured spot for wealthy French nationals avoiding tax.
"I find it quite pathetic," Ayrault had said. "Everyone loves him as an artist, but paying your taxes is an act of solidarity and patriotism."
Hailed as one of the greatest actors of his generation, Depardieu has in recent years become as famed for his erratic behaviour as for his acting talents.
He had been due to appear in court on Thursday on charges of driving his scooter drunk through Paris, but the hearing was postponed.
In August he was cautioned after punching a car driver who had forced him to swerve on his scooter, and last year he generated global headlines when he urinated in a bottle aboard a plane as it prepared to take off from Paris for Dublin.
- AFP/ha
Actor Depardieu 'giving up French passport' in tax row
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