January 7, 2013 -- Updated 1333 GMT (2133 HKT)
In escaping France's punishing income taxes, the famous actor has angered and amused his compatriots, says Matthew Fraser.
French tax hike protest
January 7, 2013 -- Updated 1333 GMT (2133 HKT)
Putin gives Depardieu citizenship
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Gérard Depardieu is granted Russian citizenship by Vladimir Putin
- Matthew Fraser: Depardieu is not the only one who wants to escape France's income taxes
- He says the French are suspicious of money and hostile toward the wealthy
- Fraser: Depardieu's choice to become a Russian citizen is seen as a rejection of France
Editor's note: Matthew Fraser is a professor at the American University of Paris and lecturer at the Institut d'Etudes Politiques de Paris.
(CNN) -- When Gérard Depardieu triggered a fiscal
feud with the French government a few weeks ago, the media had fun
recasting him in his movie role as the comic book character Obélix, a fat and superhumanly strong Gaulois who stands up to the Romans.
Now that the French movie
star has abandoned the land of the Gauls to become a Russian citizen,
his recent film role as the mad monk Rasputin is being evoked to put a cinematic image on a bizarre real-life drama that has become an affair of state.
Depardieu's "defection"
to Russia has both amused and angered his compatriots. The actor has not
helped matters with his puzzling public statements. Depardieu, whose
father was a communist, praised Russia as a "great democracy," a
description open to some debate given that country's history.
Matthew Fraser
Over the weekend,
Depardieu made a visit to Russia that was splashed all over the media in
Russia -- and was the first item on the French evening news on Sunday.
French television viewers watched footage of Depardieu defend Vladimir
Putin and proudly brandish his new Russian passport.
Depardieu's love for
Russia cannot be indifferent to the country's flat 13% income tax rate,
measurably lower than the 75% rate that France's socialist government
will impose this year on income over a million euros. Depardieu, whose
personal fortune is estimated at $200 million, at first bolted for
Belgium to escape the tax. Now he has accepted the warm embrace of his
friend Putin. France's constitutional court overturned the "supertax" on
the rich, but the Socialist government intends to push forward with the
measure.
Depardieu said he admires
Russia for its history and great artists. Yet his affection for the
Slavic world has not been without controversy. He is a friend of Ramzan
Kadyrov, the autocratic president of the Russian republic of Chechnya
who has invited other Western stars such as Jean-Claude Van Damme and
Hilary Swank to his birthday parties to flatter his over-sized
self-image. More bizarrely, Depardieu recorded a duet
titled "Nebo Molchit" with the glamorous Gulnara Karimova -- known as
"Googoosha" -- daughter of Uzbekistan's autocratic ruler Islam Karimov.
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His critics in France
look upon Depardieu's posturing as the latest misadventure in the
actor's turbulent life. Recently, he was arrested and jailed for driving
his scooter through Paris in a state of intoxication. He was also
kicked off an airplane in Dublin for relieving himself on board. A man
of gargantuan appetites referred to affectionately in France as "Gégé",
Depardieu is a larger-than-life figure whose recent travails have
highlighted deep tensions in French society.
Depardieu is not the only
fabulously wealthy citizen to leave France to escape the country's
punishing income taxes. In the past, French rocks stars such as Johnny
Hallyday and tennis players such as Yannick Noah have attracted
criticism for moving to Switzerland. Tax exile is frowned on in France, a
country where fiscal obligation is considered a gesture of loyalty to
the French nation.
French tax hike protest
France is also a
traditionally Catholic culture suspicious of money and hostile toward
the wealthy. French president Francois Hollande declared publicly during
last year's election campaign: "I don't like the rich." In French
politics that kind of declaration resonates with voters. The French are
cynical about their elites in general, and hostile toward the rich in
particular.
In the late 17th
century, Louis XIV infamously expelled nearly a million Protestants who
at that time were a rich and powerful minority active in banking and
finance. Today France's billionaires, such as L'Oreal heiress Liliane
Bettencourt, tend to stay discreetly out of view and lack the same
spirit of charity found in America. France has no Warren Buffet or Bill
Gates. The super-rich in France give money to politicians, not to
charities.
Depardieu may be a
hugely popular movie actor in France, but when he put his sumptuous digs
in the fashionable Saint-Germain-des-Prés section of Paris on the
market for nearly $66 million it reminded the French that he belongs to a different universe.
Even more controversial
is Depardieu's choice to become a Russian citizen, which is an open
gesture of defiance and rejection toward the French nation. France is a
country whose mythology of "national identity" is deeply entrenched in
the collective psyche. The notion of the "French exception" reinforces
the idea that France is different and can resort to extraordinary means
to protect its national identity, usually by heavy state intervention.
In France, citizenship is cherished, something that foreigners aspire
to.
When one of France's
most famous and loved movie stars hands back his passport and flounces
out of the national family, it can be interpreted as an act of betrayal.
Many of Depardieu's critics in France have preferred to use the
language of sarcasm, dismissing him as a troubled figure out of touch
with the realities of his fellow countrymen. The French newspaper Le
Monde pointed out that Russian commentators are saying that Depardieu is
being naively exploited by Putin. The Russian leader, they argue, is
using the Depardieu saga as a PR exercise for internal purposes.
Depardieu has been seen
knocking about his familiar precincts on the Left Bank of Paris. When he
leaves the country, he will have to return next time showing a Russian
passport.
Meanwhile, the French film starring Depardieu as Rasputin still has not been released in his new Russian homeland.
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The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of Matthew Fraser.COPY http://edition.cnn.com
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