Skip to main contentSkip to navigationSkip to navigation
Gérard Depardieu
Gérard Depardieu has threatened to give up his French passport in protest at a proposed tax hike on the rich. Photograph: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images
Gérard Depardieu has threatened to give up his French passport in protest at a proposed tax hike on the rich. Photograph: Loic Venance/AFP/Getty Images

Putin grants Gérard Depardieu Russian citizenship after tax row

This article is more than 11 years old
Depardieu is angered by French president François Hollande's attempt to raise taxes on the mega-rich to 75%

Gérard Depardieu, the French actor who has been sparring with his native country over taxes, has been granted Russian citizenship.

A brief announcement on the Kremlin website said the president, Vladimir Putin, signed the citizenship grant on Thursday.

Depardieu is angered by François Hollande's attempt to raise taxes on the mega-rich to 75%. Russia has a flat income tax of 13%.

A representative for Depardieu declined to say whether he had accepted the offer and refused all comment.

Depardieu has made more than 150 films, among them the 1991 comedy Green Card about a man who enters into a marriage of convenience in order to get US residency.

Depardieu said in an open letter published in mid-December that he would turn over his passport and French social security card.

His subsequent decision to move to tax-friendly Belgium was slammed by Hollande's government.

"I'm a true European, a citizen of the world," Depardieu wrote in the letter.

The tax on millionaires was struck down by France's highest court last month but the government has promised to resubmit the law in a slightly different form soon.

Depardieu is well known in Russia, where he appears in an ad for Sovietsky Bank's credit card and is prominently featured on the bank's home page.

France's civil code says a person must have another nationality in order to give up French citizenship because it is forbidden to be stateless. Thursday's decision by the Kremlin appears to fulfil that requirement.

More on this story

More on this story

  • Gérard Depardieu fails to attend court hearing - video

  • Gérard Depardieu joins very small club of adoptive Russian citizens

  • Gérard Depardieu goes Russian: caption competition

  • Gérard Depardieu meets Russian president in Black Sea resort - video

  • Gérard Depardieu: lord of misrule who divides France

  • Gérard Depardieu's tax exile could take him to Chechnya

  • France's constitutional council rejects 75% tax rate

Most viewed

Most viewed