Bachchan is Deauville's honorary citizen

Amitabh Bachchan follows Britain's Queen Elizabeth, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin and Pope John Paul IV as honorary citizen of Deauville, a small scenic town 200 kilometres from Paris.

He was conferred the citizenship at the end of his retrospective at the Deauville Film Festival to a five-minute standing ovation.

The retrospective, which included audiences from Korea, Taiwan and China, concluded March 16 with Karan Johar's Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham.

"This is a unique, first-time experience for Mr Bachchan," Sunil Doshi, Bachchan's associate, said. "He has never been honoured this way at an international film festival. To see mainstream cinema, hitherto brushed aside in favour of the so-called art cinema, being thus honoured is a [source of] great joy and immense relief for him. His belief in commercial Hindi cinema is finally vindicated."

"I think commercial and offbeat cinema need to co-exist both in India and abroad. The recognition of my work in Deauville is recognition for popular Hindi cinema," Bachchan said. "I would like to see this as a step forward for Indian cinema. The Deauville Film Festival has been honouring Asian cinema for the last five, six years and a lot of Indian films have been shown here. This time, they have introduced mainstream commercial cinema."

"There is a lot of interest [in Indian cinema]," he added. "There has a been lot of media coverage and I have been speaking to scores of people from the press here. In the years to come, this interest in our cinema will grow."

The mayor of Deauville hosted a lunch for the Bachchans, and a huge brass and copper coin with Bachchan's name inscribed on it was unveiled at the Deauville town square.

"God makes some people special. I guess my husband is one of them," Jaya Bachchan said. "Deauville is a beautiful, peaceful place. It is good to see Indian mainstream cinema being recognised."

The Bachchans flew in to Paris after a three-city tour of the US. The megastar signed 500 to 600 copies of his biography To Be Or To Be in New York, New Jersey and San Francisco.

From Paris, the actor will head for Pune to shoot for Rajkumar Santoshi's Khaki (costarring Ajay Devgan, Akshay Kumar, Tusshar Kapoor, Aishwarya Rai).