France's leading screen idol tops honours list

Paris (AP) - The actors Gerard Depardieu (pictured above in a scene from Cyrano de Bergerac) and Jean Marais and the director Marcel Carne have been promoted to the French Legion of Honour.

Also honoured in lists published this week were the writer Henri Troyat, the jazz pianist Jacques Dieval and the European Commission member Yves-Thibault de Silguy.

Carne, 89, director of Les Enfants du Paradis , Hotel du Nord and other classics, was promoted to Grand Officer, the Legion's highest rank. Marais, a long-time theatre and movie actor, was promoted to the rank of Commander of the Legion of Honour. Depardieu, one of France's best-known actors who starred in Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card, was promoted to the rank of Chevalier.

Mr de Silguy is in charge of economics for the Commission, the executive branch of the European Union. As such, he will play an important role in the implementation of a single European currency. The Legion was created by Napoleon in 1802.