David Cronenberg, seen during a news conference in Paris in June 2008, is being honoured for his lifetime contributions to film. (Canadian Press)

Canadian David Cronenberg received the French Legion of Honour on Wednesday night in recognition of his contributions to filmmaking.

The director of Eastern Promises and The Fly was named a knight in the Légion d'honneur by the French ambassador at a private ceremony in Toronto.

Although proudly Canadian, Cronenberg said he also felt a strong connection to France.

"I feel that France is also my country, another parent who has been proudly indulgent when it has been best and sternly critical when that was best, all for the benefit of David, their spoiled child," Cronenberg said.

"Thank you all for your indulgence. Vive la France, vive le Canada et vive le cinéma."

Earlier, Cronenberg said he has always felt his work was welcomed in France, even when he was known as the King of Horror for films such as Shivers and Scanners.

He won a special jury prize at the Cannes Film Festival for Crash and a French critics prize for The Dead Zone.

"The French were amongst the very first to immediately accept cinema as art, as opposed to just a disposable entertainment," Cronenberg told CBC News.

"They also have a tradition of not having contempt for genre."

News emerged last week that Cronenberg has agreed to create a sequel to his Russian mob drama Eastern Promises.

He is also about to work with some of Hollywood's best-known actors. Cronenberg's next film, a political thriller titled The Matarese Circle, will most likely star Denzel Washington and Tom Cruise.

It is based on a 1979 book by Robert Ludlum.

With files from the Canadian Press