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Lionel Cironneau/AP/Press Association Images

Gerard Depardieu has license suspended for driving scooter while drunk

The veteran actor was three times over the legal limit when he was arrested in Paris last year after falling off the scooter.

A FRENCH COURT has ordered actor Gerard Depardieu to pay a €4,000 fine and suspended his driver’s license for six months for driving his scooter in Paris while drunk.

The 64-year-old star, who has made headlines in recent months with erratic behaviour and a tax feud with French authorities, was arrested in November after falling off his scooter while more than three times over the legal alcohol limit.

He was sentenced in absentia after repeatedly skipping court appearances. Depardieu has in recent weeks been filming a movie in Russia.

He faced a maximum sentence of up to two years in prison, though prosecutors had not called for jail time.

Hailed as one of the greatest French actors of his generation, Depardieu starred in films including “Green Card”, “Cyrano de Bergerac”, “Jean de Florette” and the “Asterix & Obelix” series. He also owns a number of businesses including vineyards.

But in recent years he has become as famed for his off-screen behaviour as for his acting talents.

The star announced in November he was moving abroad after President Francois Hollande’s Socialist government sought to impose a 75 percent tax rate on incomes over one million euros ($1.3 million).

He took up residency in Belgium and was granted Russian citizenship by President Vladimir Putin. The decision sparked controversy, as has as his self-avowed friendships with Putin and Chechnya’s strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Depardieu recently told a French newspaper he considered himself a “citizen of the world” and said he was applying for an Algerian passport and hoped eventually to have citizenship in seven countries.

In August, he was cautioned after punching a motorist who had forced him to swerve on his scooter, and in 2011 he generated global headlines when he tried to urinate in a bottle aboard a plane as it prepared to take off from Paris for Dublin.

In the interview with Le Journal du Dimanche earlier this month, Depardieu described himself as “someone who is a bit of a rebel, who shakes things up and who is sometimes drunk.”

Read: Gerard Depardieu takes up residence on Russia’s Democracy Street >

Read: Gerard Depardieu ‘said sorry’ to stewardess after peeing on plane >

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    Mute Daffers
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 12:55 PM

    Wow. To be the 7th least failed state in the world is mindblowing… simply for the thought that most are in a worse position than us!

    58
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    Mute Alex simon
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:35 PM

    We are better than canada! And the usa not bad

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    Mute Treasa Lynch
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:21 PM

    Am I reading that right? Only three other EU members are less failed states than Ireland is?

    God that must really irritate the crew who consider us a complete banana republic.

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    Mute Kevin O Sullivan
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:03 PM

    i thought everything in the nordic countries was top banna. seeings they are always held up as the ones to be like

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    Mute Claire O'Dwyer
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:09 PM

    That article doesn’t make a whole pile of sense..

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    Mute fizi_water
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 2:57 PM

    This ranking is not about quality of life, etc. like some comments suggest you read that. It’s about peace and military risks in particular countries.

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    Mute Ryan Murphy
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 6:11 PM

    I suppose it’s “our” fault that seven of the ten worst countries are in Africa.

    Haiti was a cesspit ever before the tragedy there, sadly, and now they’ve turned to raping one another.

    Iraq and Afghanistan are a whole other story!

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    Mute fitszpatrick
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    Jun 24th 2011, 12:10 AM

    Hail the baldy Nazis dem dam nigras don’t have a clue

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    Mute Ryan Murphy
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    Jun 24th 2011, 1:23 AM

    You’re some gowl.

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    Mute David Higgins
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 6:05 PM

    I hope we can move up near Switzerland at some stage. Tighter borders, lower-taxes, and they have their own currency!!!

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    Mute Dave Finn
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 11:10 PM

    Lower taxes? Really? Any mid Europe states i’ve lived in were thieves when it came to tax! (admittedly i’ve not lived in Switzerland, but it is one of my favourite places!)

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    Mute Shaafici Cali
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 1:40 PM

    really this is propaganda somalia is not leading top list there is bit exageration we aware of that somalia is devastated country and failure state indicating humanitarian crises and human rights abuses ,killing ,abducting, hijacking raping but there is still hope to survive this condition we are not hopeless our people still struggling to control there live style and to restore the country peace and stability so that we are not top list becouse this means no hope

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    Mute fizi_water
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 3:03 PM

    Sorry, but what is actually your point, I struggle to understand? Thanks.

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    Mute wayupnorth
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    Jun 23rd 2011, 4:11 PM

    I think the point was that “there is hope”.

    And yes, if other countries stopped interfering, there probably would be. For example:
    “The United States has quietly poured weapons and military advisers into Ethiopia, whose recent invasion of Somalia opened a new front in the Bush administration’s war on terrorism …” etc etc. 1/8/2007

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