Georges Danton

For decades, Gérard Depardieu has been known as one of France 's greatest and most prolific actors, starring in hundreds of films, television productions and plays. The 75-year-old Oscar-nominated thespian has portrayed numerous historical and fictitious figures including Georges Danton, Joseph Stalin, Honoré de Balzac, Alexandre Dumas, Christopher Columbus and Cyrano de Bergerac. This reputation as a French film great is perhaps only matched by his renown for impish behaviour, and over the years, the public - and Depardieu himself - have revelled in his wild excesses, including his drinking and womanising. He has over the years relieved himself in front of fellow passengers on a plane, boasted of his youth as a grave-robbing rent boy and cosied up to some of the world's most feared autocrats - including Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un. However, the limit of what many among the French public were willing to ascribe to his mischievous nature appeared to reach a limit when a series of women accused Depardieu of rape and sexual assault.

The French love a ruckus. The first sign of a infringement of their rights is shown on the boulevards, and they take to the streets. The nation has been protesting a proposed increase in the pension age from 62 to 64. This is still lower than in the majority of industrialized nations, though it is 66 here. J'adore France, the French, and their obdurate willingness to say 'non'. Collective protests seem to be more part of their DNA than our'mustn't grumble' policy (when doing exactly that).