France’s president is accused of siding with Depardieu as actor faces sexual misconduct allegations

PARIS — Women’s rights activists criticized French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday for showing to take sides with actor Gérard Depardieu by saying the movie star who’s going through sexual misconduct allegations “makes France proud.”

Speaking on Wednesday night time on TV channel France 5, Macron described himself as a “big admirer” of a “great actor.” Macron added: “He makes France proud.”

Macron’s feedback in a televised interview come after a documentary that aired earlier this month stated 16 ladies have accused Depardieu of harassing, groping or sexually assaulting them. The France-2 report additionally confirmed the actor making obscene remarks and gestures throughout a 2018 journey to North Korea.

They additionally come as a Spanish journalist and author just lately filed a criticism towards Depardieu, who she says sexually abused her throughout an interview in Paris in 1995, Spanish police stated Thursday.

Asked about such accusations towards Depardieu, Macron stated he believed within the presumption of innocence and the judicial course of. “You will never see me participate in a manhunt,” the French chief stated.

Macron additionally criticized his tradition minister’s resolution to launch a disciplinary process regarding Depardieu’s prestigious Order of the Legion of Honor, which may result in the award getting rescinded. He stated Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak went “a bit too far.”

The Legion of Honor is just not “a moral tool” and shouldn’t be eliminated “based on a documentary,” Macron stated.

Depardieu, 74, was put below investigation in December 2020 for alleged rape and sexual assault following allegations in 2018 from actor Charlotte Arnould, who stated the crimes came about at Depardieu’s house. The investigation is ongoing.

Another alleged sufferer emerged in Spain, journalist and author Ruth Baza who filed a criticism final week within the southern metropolis of Torremolinos that the Spanish police stated will now be shared with French authorities.

Baza, 51, informed The Associated Press in a phone interview Thursday that when she was 23, she interviewed the actor in Paris for the journal Cinemanía. She stated that in her police criticism she defined how on the finish of the interview the actor began kissing her face and neck, and touched her between her legs, habits she stated that police have categorised as rape.

Baza stated she felt “truly paralyzed” by Depardieu. “I was trapped.”

Baza stated she had buried the matter in her thoughts however wrote all of it down intimately in her diary on the time. She stated the entire episode flooded again final April when she examine accusations made by 13 ladies towards Depardieu.

She stated that since then she has been in “a true nightmare” and determined she needed to communicate out.

“Taking the decision to go to the police has been the very last decision to try to go on with my life and leave this story in the hands of others and just try to help others who are in my very same situation and who are not able to talk,” Baza stated.

She stated that she has each intention of testifying to French authorities if wanted.

Another criticism was filed in France in September by comic Helene Darras for alleged sexual assault. Darras accused Depardieu of touching her backside when she was a younger further for the 2008 movie “Disco.”

Women rights activists on Thursday vigorously denounced Macron’s feedback.

Michelle Dayan, president of Lawyers 4 Women, stated that as a lawyer and a citizen, she additionally believed strongly within the presumption of innocence. “Yet it mustn’t be used as a pretext not to listen to women who say they are victims of abuses,” she stated.

Speaking on France Info information broadcaster, Dayan stated “violence against women starts there … in the image of women that is conveyed” via Depardieu’s stunning remarks.

Activist group Osez le feminisme denounced on X, previously Twitter, “one more confirmation that, definitively, Emmanuel Macron doesn’t live in the same world as us.”

“We, the prey, are facing a man (Depardieu) who describes himself as a ‘great hunter,’ yet who, in the words of the president, becomes the victim of a ‘manhunt,’” the group posted.

Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, stated on BFM TV that Macron’s feedback had been “very serious” as a result of “he is judging women who filed a complaint, women who spoke out. … He’s taking sides.”

Former French President Francois Hollande additionally chimed in to counter his successor. “No, we are not proud,” Hollande stated on the France Inter radio community.

What was anticipated from the president was to “speak about women” who see in Depardieu’s remarks “violence, domination and contempt,” he stated.

In October, Depardieu revealed an open letter within the French newspaper Le Figaro that stated, “I want to tell you the truth. I have never, ever abused a woman.”

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Associated Press author Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.