France faces autumn of discontent, claims Gérard Depardieu The 64-year old Gallic screen icon made his incendiary remarks while on his first film shoot in France since he took up Russian citizenship and residence in Belgium to avoid President François Hollande's planned 75 per cent super tax on millionaire earners. Despite record unemployment levels and a deeply sluggish economy, Mr Hollande's government insists that there are tentative signs of recovery and that the jobless rate will start receding by the end of the year. Mr Depardieu claimed this was pie in the sky. "I think things will really heat up this autumn and I think that in 2014, things will be much worse in France, despite what some people are saying," he predicted in an interview with AFP. The Asterix and Obelix star is currently shooting a film in English in Seine-Saint-Denis outside Paris in which he plays legendary football pioneer Jules Rimet, who founded the World Cup. British actor Tim Roth is his co-star. Other scenes take place in Brazil, Switzerland and Spain. Mr Depardieu said: "This is the first film I've shot in France (since his row with the government last year). I refused all French films as people wouldn't understand," he said. I live in Russia, where I have just spent three and a half months. I have companies in countries where I work as it has more advantages," he said. "I am not fleeing the (French) tax man but the use that (some) governments have of the money they take," he claimed, insisting that "in the past 15 years, I have probably only spent five months in France." In June, Mr Depardieu claimed he was on the way to owning "seven passports" but that the French still love him as he fitted the "hooligan" image they admire of a "rebel who shakes things up and is sometimes drunk." Later that month, he was fined 4,000 euros and had his driving licence suspended for six months for driving his scooter while inebriated. The star of Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card who will soon appear as disgraced IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in the movie, Welcome To New York.