By Hindustan Times

Mumbai, July 16 -- Many people have asked me to do a French movie, but I don't think I'm going to," said Amitabh Bachchan. The Bollywood actor was the French consulate's guest of honour on the occasion of Bastille Day, celebrated as the French Independence Day. When asked whether he would be meeting French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who will reportedly be visiting the country by year-end, Bachchan said, "I don't know yet, we shall have to see."

Despite being at the French Independence Day, the actor was at his patriotic best, loudly singing the Indian National Anthem. Even when called up on stage to address the crowd, he mentioned, "I was told on Twitter that today (July 14) is a momentous day for India as well. It is the day that we won the Kargil war, so I request all of you to remember the jawans and the sacrifices they made for us today."

Speaking on his personal connect with France, he recalled how he was invited to perform a reading of his father's (Harivansh Rai Bachchan) poems at the Champs Elysees Theatre in Paris, the second most prestigious venue in France. "I was especially surprised when they told me that they wanted me to perform the poems in Hindi, and that they would get someone to translate it to French," he recalled. "I searched for someone who would be fluent in French and Hindi, to be able to do justice to the translation, but after searching for a while, I came to the conclusion that such a person didn't exist. Imagine my shock when I was called by the Parisian production agency handling the event, and told that they had found a Frenchman from Paris who could do it."