Swiss Radio Television (RTS) has declared that it is excluding from its programming films in which Gérard Depardieu plays “one of the main roles (…). One or two films were thus put aside during this holiday season”declared an RTS spokesperson, Marco Ferrara, to Agence France-Presse, Sunday December 31, confirming information from the Swiss weekly Morning Sunday.
This decision comes after the broadcast, Thursday, December 7, of the investigative magazine “Complément d’investigation” in which the French actor makes misogynistic and insulting remarks when addressing women, and utters others of a sexual nature when a little girl on horseback comes into the picture.
“A pragmatic choice”
“When we feel that the majority of the public may feel offended by a work or personality that was previously accepted, we occasionally exclude it from our programming”, explained Mr. Ferrara. The decision to suspend the broadcast on RTS of films in which the French actor plays one of the main roles is “a pragmatic choice, which we will re-examine depending on developments in the situation, without a timetable fixed in advance and in compliance with legal procedure”he continued.
Since the broadcast of the images of “Complément d’investigation”, Gérard Depardieu has been at the heart of a lively controversy: a column signed by 56 personalities and published by Le Figaro called for “do not erase[r] Gérard Depardieu “. Since then, several signatories, including Carole Bouquet, Nadine Trintignant and Pierre Richard, have decided to distance themselves from this text, because of its author as well as the arguments used to denounce “the lynching that is taking place” on the French actor. In response, two “counter-tribunals” appeared, one signed, initially, by 600 personalities of the world of culture, and the other by some seventy.
Also, Emmanuel Macron spoke about the affair on the set of “C à Vous” by denouncing a ” manhunt ” and considering that the actor “makes France proud”. Recalling the principle of the presumption of innocence, the head of state barely mentioned the women who say they are victims of the actor.
Indeed, in addition to the comments made by the actor and broadcast by “Complément d’investigation”, the investigative magazine also returned to his indictment for rape in 2020, following a complaint from an actress from around twenty years old, Charlotte Arnould, whose accusations he refutes. Gérard Depardieu is also the target of a complaint for sexual assault filed by the French actress Hélène Darras for facts a priori prescribed, as well as another in Spain by a journalist, Ruth Baza, accusing him of a rape committed in 1995.