Posted on 12/21/2012 9:31:53 PM PST by nickcarraway
Veteran French actress Catherine Deneuve launched a strong defence of Gérard Depardieu on Friday, calling a virulent critic of her fellow thespian's bid for tax exile a petty-minded pygmy.
Deneuve's defence came after the reclusive French film legend Brigitte Bardot castigated attacks on a man who is arguably France's leading actor with roles in nearly 170 films.
The hulking 64-year-old star's move to Belgium has been derided as "pathetic" by Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault while another top French actor, Philippe Torreton, publicly accused him of sulking like a playground creep.
Deneuve, a chiselled blonde actress whose career spans nearly a half-century, questioned Torreton's credentials to attack a giant of French cinema in an open letter in the left-wing Liberation daily .
She told Torreton her "anger was borne of your hasty judgements made without thinking and this pettiness," adding: "You take aim at his physique! At his talent!
"'This mess' that you speak of. What right, what democratic motive do you claim as your dirty condemnation?" she said. "The actor is a giant and you are expressing nothing but your bitterness.
"I shudder to think what you would have done in 1789," she said, referring to the French Revolution in which the king and queen were beheaded and tens of thousands – notably aristocrats and the bourgeois – were killed.
Deneuve also flayed the prime minister's "pathetic" remark and a comment by Labour Minister Michel Sapin that the shift to Belgium signified Depardieu's "personal decline" as "words not worthy of men of state."
Torreton had in a vitriolic attack on Tuesday accused Depardieu of being an outspoken, money-obsessed lout with "dictator friends."
The latter was a reference to Uzbekistan's strongman leader Islam Karimov whose pop star daughter recently recorded a duet with Depardieu.
Bardot – who keeps out of the public eye and only speaks on animal issues – had also defended Depardieu, who she said had been "the victim of extremely unfair persecution".
She told Torreton to "keep his venom, his vulgarity, his mediocrity and his jealousy to insult someone worthy of the bother".
Depardieu on Sunday threatened to give up his French passport and take up Belgian citizenship to protest at the Socialist government's new tax hike on the rich.
He made the threat after Ayrault called him "pathetic" for making Belgium his formal place of residence, a move designed to help the actor avoid the French tax.
Depardieu has joined some of France's wealthiest business figures in Belgium following moves by President Francois Hollande's government to tax annual incomes above one million euros ($1.3 million) at 75 percent.
Unlike France, Belgium does not impose a wealth tax and has not had one since 1830. Its income and inheritance taxes are also lower.
In his 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.
He said that over 45 years of working and running businesses in France he had paid €145 million into state coffers. He claimed to have paid 85 percent tax on his earnings in 2012.
Liberals do love mass murder and mayhem.
It’s nice to have Mlles. Deneuve and Bardot on your side. They were quite the Gallic beauties in their heyday:
http://wallpapers88.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Brigitte-Bardot-001.jpg
Wow! She is still a beautiful goddess, yet with a heart and brain to match!
Thanks nickcarraway.
It’s funny how after multiple waves of bubonic plague, muslim hoardes sacking their southern cities, megalomaniacal tyrants and kings, and major social upheavals that would test the mettle of any nation, France finally self castrates itself by a childish and unrealistic economic model devised by some 19’th century shut-in who never ran a business or met a payroll. Liberté, égalité, stupidity.
The French....
Their nation is a socialist turd pit.
flooded by Muslims on welfare.....
the armpit of Europe.
what a sewer.
Historical payback perhaps for being the incubator of socialist ideals. Some years ago a young expat on a meager stipend frequented used bookstores in Paris reading and internalizing their fetid and rediculous social theories. On failing his exams and returning home, the youthful Saloth Sar changed his public name to his nom de guerre Pol Pot and the rest is history. Frogs are their own worst enemies.
I long ago refused to set foot or spend another dime in France.
I like your way of saying it better, though.
And he's won.
Once you can no longer argue the merits of your position, you demonize those that oppose you.
The left has been doing this for years.
Unfortunately for the world, demonizing your opponent does not change reality.
Race relations in our nations is worse today then in the 1960 simply because only one side is allowed in the discussion of race. Any view point that is not politically acceptable is shouted down with claims of racism. (The funny thing is, what is and is not politically acceptable is not even defined until they want to shut someone up, and then it is what ever the person said or did that become racism).
As socialism moves into the endgame of over a hundred years of trying to create utopia, those that support that goal have become bolder, no longer trying to hide what they believe.
Even as proof that socialism does not (and can not) succeed. Any resistance or alternate view must be silenced. They can not point to any success of their views and so turn to name calling and demonizing.
A police state can silent opposition but can not change reality. Laws of economic are real. As an airplane can for awhile defy the law of gravity, a nation can defy the laws of economics, but for only so long. A plane must land at some point either under control or crash.
An out of control economy will be brought back under control either by sound financial decisions and policies or the system will crash, and the nation will be forced to start over. Off hand I do not know of any great nation that once crashed ever fully recovered their greatness.
If politicians can not or will not control their spending the invisible hand of the marketplace will.
This Hollande guy is proof positive that the old technique has finally failed them ~
Anytime, Mareen (sic) Doud picture is posted, there are numerous posts of Catherine Zeta Jones. We should find a place for automatic Catherine (sic) D.'s photos to post.
Sorry for the (sics); just woke up and here I am on Free Republic already!
I long ago refused to set foot or spend another dime in France.
Pretty sure they return the favor.
Last (and only) time I saw it was in the theater in 1968.
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