French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday confronted accusations of siding with sexual aggressors after saying movie icon Gerard Depardieu, charged with rape and dealing with a litany of sexual assault claims, was the goal of “a manhunt”.
Depardieu, 74, who has made greater than 200 movies and TV sequence, was charged with rape in 2020 and has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by greater than a dozen girls.
He at the moment faces recent scrutiny over sexist feedback caught on digicam throughout a visit to North Korea in 2018 that had been broadcast for the primary time in a documentary on nationwide tv earlier this month.
Asked in a tv interview on Wednesday whether or not Depardieu needs to be stripped of France’s highest state award, which he acquired almost three a long time in the past, Macron mentioned: “You won’t ever see me participate in a manhunt. I hate that type of factor.
“The presumption of innocence is part of our values.”
Macron mentioned he felt “huge admiration” for Depardieu, whom he known as “an immense actor”.
But Generation.s Feministe, a feminist collective, mentioned Macron’s feedback had been “an insult” to all girls who had suffered sexual violence, “first and foremost those who accused Depardieu”.
The president’s remarks had been “not just scandalous but also dangerous”, Maelle Noir of the Nous Toutes affiliation informed AFP, as a result of the statements of victims had been “disbelieved, and trampled on, with impunity”.
“Between us and the president, there is not just a gap but a yawning abyss,” she mentioned.
Sandrine Rousseau, a Green get together MP, mentioned “Macron has picked his side — that of the aggressors”.
Anne-Cecile Mailfert, who heads affiliation the Women’s Foundation, added: “A single tweet is not enough to say how disgraceful and despicable this is towards the victims, and how behind the times.”
France 2 tv channel confirmed the actor on his 2018 journey to North Korea repeatedly making specific sexual feedback within the presence of a feminine interpreter and sexualising a small lady driving a horse.
Former president Francois Hollande informed the France Inter broadcaster on Thursday he was “not proud of Gerard Depardieu” after seeing the footage.
Some voices, together with cinema veterans who labored intently with him within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties, have defended the actor.
“I support Gerard, we must remain loyal to the people we love,” mentioned Fanny Ardant, a 74-year-old actor who received fame for her position reverse Depardieu in “The Woman Next Door”, directed by Francois Truffaut. “What is happening is a death warrant,” she informed the RTL broadcaster.
Last week, French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak mentioned the actor’s conduct shamed France, noting that he is perhaps stripped of the Legion d’Honneur, the nation’s high award he acquired in 1996.
But within the interview on Wednesday, Macron mentioned the minister could have “gone out on a limb” along with her remarks.
“Sometimes people get carried away,” he mentioned.
“We don’t take the Legion d’Honneur away from an artist on the basis of a TV report or whatever else, because if we started doing that, we’d have to take the Legion d’Honneur away from a lot of artists,” he mentioned.
The Legion of Honour “is not there to impose moral standards” on the recipient, Macron mentioned.
But the left-leaning Liberation newspaper mentioned it had been Macron who “not only went out on a limb himself but sank into indecency”.
Depardieu has created plenty of scandals through the years, together with by public brawling, drunk driving and urinating within the cabin of a industrial plane.
In 2012, he moved to Belgium to save lots of on taxes, a choice the French prime minister on the time, Jean-Marc Ayrault labelled “pathetic”.
In response to the gibe, Depardieu took Russian nationality the next yr and has posted footage of himself and President Vladimir Putin.
But final yr, he denounced what he mentioned had been Putin’s “crazy, unacceptable excesses” within the Ukraine warfare.
In 2017, Macron withdrew the Legion d’Honneur from Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein after a sequence of accusations of sexual harassment and rape.
© 2023 AFP