Expat Depardieu raves at French President over tax hikes

Following his sudden migration across the border to a historic Belgian customs house, movie star Gerard Depardieu is busy attacking French President Francois Hollande for his tax hikes.

The huge tax increases aimed at France’s wealthy citizens have resulted in the star vowing to renounce his French citizenship rather than pay 75 per cent of his income to the government. In an open letter sent to the French PM, Jean-Marc Ayrault, he accused the government of punishing success through several recently introduced policies.

Depardieu’s Paris mansion in the famous Left Bank district is now up for sale for around £40 million, and the actor has joined a number of ultra-rich French entrepreneurs already living in the pretty Belgian town of Neshin’s Millionaires Row. When the news of his arrival broke, the town’s mayor stated he was certain the move was sparked by his town’s attractive ambience rather than as a tax avoidance strategy.

Ayrault’s comments that Depardieu was unpatriotic and pathetic caused the open letter, published in the Journal de Dimanche, in which the actor stated he’d paid over £130 million to the French government since he began work at the age of 14 and had paid 85 per cent of his income in taxes in 2012. Success, talent, creativity and anything different, he wrote, must be punished in today’s France.