Depardieu banned from roads for drunk-driving The 64-year old plans to appeal the ruling, according to his lawyer, Eric de Caumont, who added that the Asterix and Obelix and Cyrano de Bergerac star did not show up to the hearing as he was in Moscow filming. In August, he was cautioned after punching a motorist who had forced him to swerve on his scooter, and in 2011 he received international media attention for seeking to urinate in a bottle aboard a plane as it prepared to take off from Paris for Dublin. In recent months Mr Depardieu has made headlines less for his acting ability than for a blazing row with France's Socialist government over a "supertax" on the rich. He controversially moved to Belgium late last year to avoid paying a planned 75 per cent tax on millionaire earners in France. He went on to be granted Russian nationality, publicly touting his friendships with Vladimir Putin and Chechnya's strongman leader Ramzan Kadyrov. Last Sunday, the actor claimed he was on course for having "seven passports" but insisted the French still loved his "hooligan" spirit. "I think I correspond to an image that the French like: one of a rebel who shakes things up and is sometimes drunk," he said.