Government spokesperson Olivier Véran said Thursday he was “shocked” by the misogynistic and insulting remarks towards women made in a documentary by Gérard Depardieu, also indicted for rape and sexual assault. “These comments shock me and I have a thought for the people who felt offended, who are victims,” declared the government spokesperson on BFMTV and RMC. “I am shocked by the comments I saw, which I find null”, but “it is up to justice to define things”, he added, regarding the statements reported in a report by the France 2 program “Complement of investigation”.
Emmanuel Macron supported Gérard Depardieu at the end of December, saying he was a “huge actor” who “makes France proud” and denouncing “a manhunt”. The Head of State also considered that the Legion of Honor was an Order which is “not there to preach morality”, while his Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, had announced on the same channel some days before that a “disciplinary procedure” would be initiated by the Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honor against the actor. She judged that Gérard Depardieu’s remarks were “shameful to France”.
“We are not a people’s court”
In a letter dated December 22 revealed by the newspaper The Parisian and of which AFP was aware, the Grand Chancellery also confirmed to the actor’s lawyer that this disciplinary procedure had been opened. Olivier Véran also noted that “when the courts are seized, it is up to them to decide, not to you and not to me. We are not a people’s court”.
The Depardieu affair has generated countless reactions. A column calling for “not to erase” the icon of French cinema, published on Christmas Day in the newspaper Le Figaroat the initiative of an actor described in a daily investigation The world as “close to the identity and reactionary spheres”, in return gave rise to several “counter-tribunes”, including one signed by some 8,000 artists. Several personalities have since distanced themselves, including Carole Bouquet (former companion of the actor), Nadine Trintignant and Gérard Darmon, with the first platform.
In the images of the report, Gérard Depardieu, known for having played Cyrano de Bergerac, multiplies the misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, not sparing a little girl with remarks of a sexual nature.
The France Télévisions group assured that this last passage had been “authenticated” by a bailiff, after the head of state had suggested that the sequence could have been modified during editing, as the family had previously claimed of the actor.