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MOSCOW — Newly-minted Russian citizen Gerard Depardieu has compared President Vladimir Putin to a Pope.
Depardieu, whom Putin presented with a Russian passport in January, said “for me, he is like (former French president) Francois Mitterand or Pope John Paul II.”
STORY: Gerard Depardieu to Star in Two Films Set in Chechnya
The French actor’s praise for Putin came in an interview published in mass-circulation Russian tabloid Komsomolskaya Pravda.
“I will say what I think about Putin: The Russian nation needs a person just like this — with a Russian temper. Putin is trying to return just a bit of dignity back to the people,” Depardieu said.
The 64-year-old actor made the decision to seek Russian citizenship after France’s socialist president Francois Hollande raised tax rates for the rich to 75 percent — compared with Russia’s 13 percent flat rate of personal tax. In the new interview, the actor denied the move was a PR stunt.
“That is just laughable,” he said. “I have more that 200 films. Who needs PR after that?”
Depardieu is currently in Moscow prepping a film set in the Russian capital and Grozny, capital of troubled Caucasus region of Chechnya.
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