Actor Gerard Depardieu 'giving up French passport' in tax controversy

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.

"I am not asking to be approved of, but I could at least be respected. All of those who have left France have not been insulted as I have been," he said in the letter published in newspaper Le Journal du Dimanche.

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.

In the letter, Depardieu, who has extensive business interests including wine estates and three Paris restaurants, accused the Socialists of driving France's most talented figures out of the country with their tax policies.

"I am leaving because you consider that success, creation, talent, anything different, must be punished," he said.

Depardieu said he had paid 85 percent tax on his revenues in 2012 and that over 45 years of working and running businesses in France he had paid 145 million euros to state coffers.

He said he regretted leaving France and was "insulted" by accusations he was being unpatriotic.

"At no time have I failed in my duties. The historic films in which I took part bear witness to my love of France and its history," Depardieu said.

"Who are you to judge me, I ask you Mr Ayrault, prime minister of Mr Hollande?" he said. "Despite my excesses, my appetite and my love of life, I am a free man."

Ayrault's comments this week came after it emerged that Depardieu had taken up residence in Nechin, a tiny village just over the border in Belgium, which is a favoured spot for wealthy French nationals avoiding tax.

"I find it quite pathetic," Ayrault had said. "Everyone loves him as an artist but paying your taxes is an act of solidarity and patriotism."

Real estate agents said on Thursday that Depardieu was selling his Paris home -- a 1,800-square-metre (19,300-square-foot) 19th-century mansion that boasts gardens and a swimming pool -- amid reports of a 50-million-euro price tag.

The government's criticism continued on Sunday, with Culture Minister Aurelie Filippetti saying she was "shocked" by Depardieu's latest remarks.

"French citizenship is an honour, it is rights and duties also, among them paying taxes in one's country to take part in the national effort against the economic crisis, it's an act of patriotism," she said on BFMTV.

Filippetti accused Depardieu of "deserting the battlefield in the war against the crisis".

Unlike France, Belgium does not impose a wealth tax. Its income and inheritance taxes are also lower.

France's richest man Bernard Arnault came under fire in September when it emerged that he had applied for Belgian citizenship. Arnault, the boss of luxury conglomerate LVMH, denied he was seeking to become a tax exile, saying he wanted Belgian nationality "for personal reasons".

Hailed as one of the greatest actors of his generation, Depardieu has in recent years become as famed for his erratic behaviour as for his acting talents.

He had been due to appear in court on Thursday on charges of driving his scooter drunk through Paris, but the hearing was postponed.

In August he was cautioned after punching a car driver who had forced him to swerve on his scooter, and last year he generated global headlines when he urinated in a bottle aboard a plane as it prepared to take off from Paris for Dublin.

Top French writer Michel Houellebecq meanwhile said on Sunday he had returned to France after years of living as a tax exile in Ireland.