(Paris) The spokesperson for the French government said Thursday he was “shocked” by misogynistic and insulting remarks towards women made by Gérard Depardieu, a position which contrasts with that of President Macron, who praised the actor by elsewhere 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 spokesperson Olivier Véran on the BFMTV channel and RMC radio.
“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 channel show “Complément d’investigation”.
President Emmanuel Macron supported Gérard Depardieu at the end of December, saying that he was a “huge actor” who “makes France proud” and denouncing “a manhunt”.
The Head of State also considered that the Legion of Honor, the most prestigious French decoration, was an Order which is “not there to preach morality”, while his Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak had announced a few days earlier that a “disciplinary procedure” would be initiated by the Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honor against the actor.
The minister judged that Gérard Depardieu’s remarks were “shameful to France”.
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 Figaro, at the initiative of an actor described in an investigation by the daily Le Monde as “close to the spheres of identity and reactionaries”, in return gave rise to several “counter-tribunes”, including one signed by some 8,000 artists.
Several personalities have since distanced themselves, including the actresses Carole Bouquet (former companion of the actor) and Nadine Trintignant and the actor Gérard Darmon, with the first platform.
In the images of the report, Gérard Depardieu, known for having played Cyrano de Bergerac or Danton, multiplies the misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, not sparing a little girl with comments 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.
