Depardieu to give up French passport

Gérard Depardieu has said he is handing back his French passport and social security card, lambasting the French government for punishing "success, creation, talent" in his homeland.

A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old actor is the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter outside his native country by buying a house just over the border in Belgium in response to tax increases by the Socialist president, François Hollande.

In a letter to a newspaper he lambasted the French government for punishing "success, creation and talent".

Last week the 63-year-old actor announced he was moving to the small Belgian town of Nechin just over the French border.

French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described the decision as "shabby".

Next year, the top rate of income tax in France is due to become 75% on earnings above €1 million. It is currently 50% in Belgium.

"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," Depardieu said in the weekly Le Journal du Dimanche.

He accused the government of Socialist President Francois Hollande 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 during his long career he had paid €145 million to the French taxman.

"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," he said.

'Unpatriotic'

Referring to Ayrault, Depardieu asked: "Who are you to judge me in this way?"

The prime minister had suggested that Depardieu's move to the town of Nechin, just over the border from the French city of Lille, was unpatriotic at a time of cutbacks.

"I find this quite shabby. All that just to avoid paying tax," he said on France 2 TV channel. "Paying a tax is an act of solidarity, a patriotic act."