“France’s leading actor Gerard Depardieu said on Sunday he was giving up his French passport after being ‘insulted’ by the prime minister calling him ‘pathetic’ for becoming a tax exile in Belgium. In an open letter to Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault, the 63-year-old ‘Cyrano de Bergerac’ and ‘Green Card’ star said he had been treated unfairly after years of supporting France and paying millions of euros in taxes. 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.”
