French actor Gerard Depardieu, accused of trying to escape the taxman by buying a house just over the border in Belgium, retorted that he left because "success, creation, talent" were now being punished in his homeland.
A popular and colourful figure in France, the 63-year-old Depardieu is the latest wealthy Frenchman to seek shelter outside his native country after tax increases by Socialist president Francois Hollande.
Prime minister Jean-Marc Ayrault described Depardieu's behaviour as "pathetic" and unpatriotic at a time when the French are being asked to pay higher taxes to reduce a bloated national debt.
"Pathetic, you said pathetic? How pathetic is that?" Depardieu said in a letter to weekly newspaper le Journal du Dimanche. "I am leaving because you believe that success, creation, talent, anything different must be sanctioned," he said.
An angry member of parliament has proposed that France adopt a US-inspired law that would force Depardieu or anyone trying to escape full tax dues to forego their nationality.
The Cyrano de Bergerac star recently bought a house in Nechin, a Belgian village a short walk from the border with France, where 27 percent of residents are French nationals, and put up his sumptuous Parisian home up for sale.
Depardieu, who has also inquired about procedures for acquiring Belgian residency, said he was handing in his passport and social security card.
He said he had paid €145 million in taxes since beginning work as a printer at the age of 14.
"People more illustrious than me have gone into (tax) exile. Of all those that have left none have been insulted as I have."
The actor's move comes three months after Bernard Arnault, chief executive of luxury giant LVMH and France's richest man, caused an uproar by seeking to establish residency in Belgium - a move he said was not for tax reasons.
Belgian residents do not pay wealth tax, which in France is now levied on those with assets over €1.3 million. Nor do they pay capital gains tax on share sales.
"We no longer have the same homeland," Depardieu said. "I no longer have any reason to stay here. I will continue to love the French and this public that I have shared so much emotion with."
Mr Hollande is pressing ahead too with plans to impose a 75-per cent supertax on income over €1 million.
"Who are you to judge me, I ask you Mr Ayrault, prime minister of Mr Hollande? Despite my excesses, my appetite and my love of life, I remain a free man."
Reuters