Singer turns his back on France in protest over high taxation

The Scotsman reports:

VETERAN French rock icon Johnny Hallyday is abandoning his native country for Switzerland, in order to avoid paying French taxes.

Hallyday, 63, plans to move to the exclusive Swiss skiing resort of Gstaad later this month and will live there for six months and one day every year in order to establish residency in the country.

Despite his age, he is still France's highest-paid music star, earning £4.5 million a year. He is reported to pay tens of thousands to the country's dreaded "fisc" tax authority.

Hallyday's decision is not only a blow to his millions of devoted fans, but also risks causing embarrassment to the interior minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, the centre-right candidate in next year's presidential elections, French commentators said yesterday.

Not everyone wants or feels obligated to pay high taxes.