Vladimir Putin
flourished his pen Thursday morning and signed what must be the oddest
decree of his long years in power: an order granting a Russian passport
to French actor and tax exile
Gerard Depardieu.
Fred Weir
Correspondent
Fred Weir has been the Monitor's Moscow correspondent, covering Russia and the former Soviet Union, since 1998.
Recent posts
| Ads by Google |
|
World-famous Pimsleur Method.
As seen on PBS - $9.95 w/ Free S&H.
|
Subscribe Today to the Monitor
A
terse announcement posted on
the Kremlin website noted that Mr. Putin acted "to satisfy an application for citizenship of the
Russian Federation by Gerard Xavier Depardieu, who was born in 1948 in
France."
Mr.
Depardieu, star of over 170 films and possessing what is often politely
referred to as a "colorful" public personality, has been locked in a
high profile battle with France's new socialist government over an
emergency tax that would levy a 75 percent rate on people earning more
than $1.3 million. He recently renounced his French citizenship and took
up residence in
Belgium, which offers a friendlier tax regime for the super-rich.
France's
high court struck down the law last week as "unconstitutional," but the
government announced it will soon reintroduce the measure after taking
the court's concerns into account.
It's not clear whether
Depardieu actually applied for residence in Russia, which has a 13
percent flat income tax for all, but in
a far-ranging press conference last month
Putin declared "If Gérard really wants to have a residence permit or a
Russian passport, you can consider it done, the issue solved
positively."
Putin also said that he has long enjoyed "kind, friendly, personal relations" with the French actor.
Come to Chechnya
Depardieu is no stranger to Russia. He has appeared in several ad campaigns and filmed the 2011 movie Rasputin in
St. Petersburg. He is also rumored to be close to
Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, and was guest of honor at the pro-Kremlin leader's birthday party in
Grozny last October.
Mr. Kadyrov has said that he would happily invite Depardieu to come and live permanently in
Chechnya
if he wanted to. "If the country's leadership decides in favor of
granting Depardieu Russian citizenship, we will be glad to create
deserved conditions for the great cultural figure in our republic,"
Kadyrov said last week.
No comments:
Post a Comment