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The famous faces stripped of France’s highest honour

The Légion d'honneur is an award given to eminent figures who have brought glory to France. Actor Gérard Depardieu, who faces allegations of sexual assault, risks joining a notorious list of those who have had the title stripped from them.

Published: 17 December 2023 11:13 CET

The Légion d'honneur is France's highest honour. (Photo by Ludovic MARIN / AFP)

The Légion d’honneur is an the highest award given by the French state.

To receive the award, French citizens must have excelled in their field for at least 20 years to the benefit of the nation; have a clean criminal record and have shown ‘good morality’; and be nominated by minister, prefect, charity, elected official, or a group of 50 people. Military personnel have slightly different criteria for receiving the award.

Foreigners can also receive the decoration but unlike French citizens do not become members of the l’ordre de la Légion d’honneur [the order of the Légion d’honneur].

Military figures who receive the Légion d’honneur receive a small payment every year of up to €36.59.

How to get stripped of the Légion d’honneur

People who receive a criminal conviction or who have ‘committed dishonourable acts or acts that go against the interests of France’ can be stripped of the Légion d’honneur.

In the case of a criminal conviction, the removal of the honour is automatic. In the latter case, the process can take months or even years while a disciplinary procedure is launched.

On Friday, the French Culture Minister announced that such a disciplinary procedure would be launched against actor Gérard Depardieu, who faces allegations of sexual assault.

A notorious list

If Gérard Depardieu is stripped of the Légion d’honneur, he would join the company of dictators, war criminals, cheats, racists and other problematic figures. Here is a selection of some of the highest profile figures to have the honour removed:

Philippe Pétain

Philippe Pétain was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1917 for his role as a commander during Battle of Verdun in WWI. Initially hailed as a war hero, he went on to collaborate with the Nazis become the head of Vichy France during WWII. He was condemned to death for treason in 1945 and stripped of the Légion d’honneur the very same day. His sentence was eventually commuted to life imprisonment.

Maurice Papon

Maurice Papon was a French politician and civil servant, found guilty in 1998 of crimes against humanity for his role in helping organise the deportation of Jews during WWII. Although he was later acquitted of a number of charges on the grounds that he was not aware that the Jews would ultimately be murdered, he was automatically stripped of his Légion d’honneur title following his initial condemnation. When he died in 2007 however, he was buried with his Légion d’honneur medal.

Bashar al-Assad

In 2007, France announced it was initiating a procedure to remove the Légion d’honneur from Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian dictator is responsible for numerous atrocities committed during the Syrian Civil War, including the use of chemical weapons against civilian populations. Up to 610,000 people are estimated to have died in the conflict since 2011. Al-Assad was initially awarded with the Légion d’honneur by President Jacques Chirac in 2001 and before the title could be stripped from him, he voluntarily renounced it.

John Galliano

British fashion designer and former artistic director of Dior, John Galliano, was stripped of his Légion d’honneur in 2012, after he was fined €6,000 for vile anti-Semitic slurs.

Lance Armstrong

Lance Armstrong was an inspiration to winning the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999-2005, having gone into remission from testicular cancer. But just one year after he finally admitted to using performance enhancing drugs in, he was stripped of the Légion d’honneur in 2014.

Controversial recipients who still bear the title

Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin, who launched Russia’s bloody invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and has a track record of brutally suppressing opposition at home, still holds his Légion d’honneur title. In February, Emmanuel Macron said he wasn’t against stripping him of of the honour, but has yet to do so.

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi

Benito Mussolini

The fascist leader of Italy from 1922-1943 was initially awarded a Légion d’honneur following nomination by a French trade minister. He was never stripped of the honour. Other 20th Century autocrats were also able to hold on to the title. Spanish dictator Francisco Franco and Romanian dictator Nicolae Caeusescu were also never stripped of their Légions d’honneur, with courts ruling that it was impossible to remove the title from a dead person.

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Azerbaijan vehemently rejects the accusation it bears responsibility for the riots that have led to the deaths of five people and rattled the Paris government.

But it is just the latest in a litany of tensions between Paris and Baku and not the first time France has accused Azerbaijan of being behind an alleged disinformation campaign.

The riots in New Caledonia, a French territory lying between Australia and Fiji, were sparked by moves to agree a new voting law that supporters of independence from France say discriminates against the indigenous Kanak population.

Paris points to the sudden emergence of Azerbaijani flags alongside Kanak symbols in the protests, while a group linked to the Baku authorities is openly backing separatists while condemning Paris.

“This isn’t a fantasy. It’s a reality,” interior minister Gérald Darmanin told television channel France 2 when asked if Azerbaijan, China and Russia were interfering in New Caledonia.

“I regret that some of the Caledonian pro-independence leaders have made a deal with Azerbaijan. It’s indisputable,” he alleged.

But he added: “Even if there are attempts at interference… France is sovereign on its own territory, and so much the better”.

“We completely reject the baseless accusations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesman Ayhan Hajizadeh said.

“We refute any connection between the leaders of the struggle for freedom in Caledonia and Azerbaijan.”

In images widely shared on social media, a reportage broadcast Wednesday on the French channel TF1 showed some pro-independence supporters wearing T-shirts adorned with the Azerbaijani flag.

Tensions between Paris and Baku have grown in the wake of the 2020 war and 2023 lightning offensive that Azerbaijan waged to regain control of its breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from ethnic Armenian separatists.

France is a traditional ally of Christian Armenia, Azerbaijan’s neighbour and historic rival, and is also home to a large Armenian diaspora.

Darmanin said Azerbaijan – led since 2003 by President Ilham Aliyev, who succeeded his father Heydar – was a “dictatorship”.

On Wednesday, the Paris government also banned social network TikTok from operating in New Caledonia.

Tiktok, whose parent company is Chinese, has been widely used by protesters. Critics fear it is being employed to spread disinformation coming from foreign countries.

Azerbaijan invited separatists from the French territories of Martinique, French Guiana, New Caledonia and French Polynesia to Baku for a conference in July 2023.

The meeting saw the creation of the “Baku Initiative Group”, whose stated aim is to support “French liberation and anti-colonialist movements”.

The group published a statement this week condemning the French parliament’s proposed change to New Caledonia’s constitution, which would allow outsiders who moved to the territory at least 10 years ago the right to vote in its elections.

Pro-independence forces say that would dilute the vote of Kanaks, who make up about 40 percent of the population.

“We stand in solidarity with our Kanak friends and support their fair struggle,” the Baku Initiative Group said.

Raphael Glucksmann, the lawmaker heading the list for the French Socialists in June’s European Parliament elections, told Public Senat television that Azerbaijan had made “attempts to interfere… for months”.

He said the underlying problem behind the unrest was a domestic dispute over election reform, not agitation fomented by “foreign actors”.

But he accused Azerbaijan of “seizing on internal problems.”

A French government source, who asked not to be named, said pro-Azerbaijani social media accounts had on Wednesday posted an edited montage purporting to show two white police officers with rifles aimed at dead Kanaks.

“It’s a pretty massive campaign, with around 4,000 posts generated by (these) accounts,” the source told AFP.

“They are reusing techniques already used during a previous smear campaign called Olympia.”

In November, France had already accused actors linked to Azerbaijan of carrying out a disinformation campaign aimed at damaging its reputation over its ability to host the Olympic Games in Paris. Baku also rejected these accusations.