British playwright Pinter awarded French Legion d'honneur

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French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin awarded Nobel prize-winning British playwright Harold Pinter the French Legion d'honneur during a visit to London on Wednesday.

At a ceremony that took place at the residence of the French ambassador to London, the French prime minister reflected on Pinter's influence on himself, saying: "Your words express the anguish and the torrent that is human life."

"Dear Harold Pinter, your words are actions. Your words are a shout. They are rough, engaged in violent hand-to-hand combat that makes them talk, that makes them speak out," Villepin said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Villepin held private talks with British Prime Minister Tony Blair at his Downing Street office.

The two events were clearly disassociated -- Blair and Pinter are not on the best of terms.

Pinter, 76, who received the 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature, is a fervent critic of the war in Iraq, and has branded Blair a "deluded idiot".

At the ceremony, Pinter praised France for its tough stance against the Iraq war, and spoke very strongly against the conflict.

The London-born author, who has suffered from cancer of the oesophagus since 2002, is one of the most successful authors in the world.

He began as an actor and made his playwriting debut in 1957, with "The Room". That was followed by one of his masterpieces "The Birthday Party", and his conclusive breakthrough came with "The Caretaker" in 1959, after which came "The Homecoming" in 1964.

Pinter also wrote poetry, prose and screen adaptations, and has occasionally directed for the stage.

He turned down the offer of a British knighthood, the equivalent of the Legion d'honneur, though he is one of Queen Elizabeth II's 65 Companions of Honour and is a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, one step below a knighthood.

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AFP 172136 GMT 01 07