Film star Gérard Depardieu, who left his native France after a tax row with authorities, said in an interview on Thursday that the French have become miserable under President François Hollande, adding that France is “not interesting anymore”, reprots FRANCE 24.
“[The French] have lost their happiness. They don’t believe in it anymore,” Depardieu said in a lengthy interview that coincided with Thursday’s release of his autobiography, “Ça s’Est Fait Comme Ça” ('That’s How It’s Done').
“I feel sorry for the French when I hear what they tell me. When I’m in France … people ask me, ‘So are you coming back?’ I tell them: ‘Well, no.’ I stay there for two days and then I return to what people think is a dictatorship,” the actor told French weekly Le Point, referring to his new home in Russia, where he relocated after President Vladimir Putin offered him citizenship last year.
The movie star said that, under Hollande’s leadership, “France has become something that no one talks about anymore… You don’t talk about it, because it’s not interesting anymore.”
The outspoken – and often controversial – actor said that the final straw came when the Socialist government, shortly after Hollande’s inauguration in 2012, announced plans to impose a 75 percent tax rate on the wealthy, including Depardieu.
“I felt as though they were trying to mow me down. As if I were a collaborator in 1945,” he said, referring to France’s post-World War II pursuit of Nazi sympathisers. “There’s such hatred for the rich. Such bitterness, such spite,” the actor said, insisting that it was the French attitude towards the rich – rather than the threat of the 75 percent tax itself – that made him leave.
When France’s then prime minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, accused Depardieu of being “pathetic”, the actor phoned up Hollande to complain: “‘Long live France,’ I said. ‘I’m getting out of here.’”
Read more of this report from FRANCE 24.