Second Bollywood actor after Amitabh Bachchan to be honored.
By Tathagata Mitra
BANGALORE: Bollywood actor Shah Rukh Khan will be awarded with France’s highest civilian award, the Légion d’honneur or as it is known in English, Legion of Honour.
The King of Bollywood is to receive this award sometime next week. Shah Rukh will be receiving this award from France’s foreign minister Laurent Fabius.
Fabius will be arriving in New Delhi on June 29, to meet the External Affairs minister Sushma Swaraj. After that he will travel to Mumbai to honor Shah Rukh with the award.
“After his meetings in Delhi on June 30 and July 1, the Minister will travel to Mumbai for business meetings and give the highest French honour, the Legion of Honour, to actor Shah Rukh Khan,” a source told The Times of India.
Shah Rukh is the second Bollywood actor to receive this award. The only other person to have had this achievement is Amitabh Bachchan who received it in 2007. Bachchan got the Legion of Honour for his “exceptional career in the world of cinema and beyond”.
“France has a tradition of supporting artists from all over the world. Bestowing the insignia of Officer of the Legion of Honour on Lata Mangeshkar, is a recognition of her incomparable singing career, and to a personality who has stayed at the top range in her field for over 60 years,” Jerome Bonnafont, Ambassador of France to India, had told the PTI in 2009.
Apart from the Legion of Honour, a few other artists have received awards fromFrance: Anurag Kashyap won Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters (Ordre des Arts et des Lettres) in 2013 for promoting Indian cinema across the world. Aishwarya Rai received the same in 2012 for her contribution in the field of arts.