The public group France Télévisions wants to put to rest doubts: the passage of a TV documentary in which French film star Gérard Depardieu appears to make comments of a sexual nature about a little girl has been “authenticated” by a bailiff.
This announcement from France Télévisions on Friday comes after statements by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday on France 5, suggesting that the sequence could have been modified during editing.
This was previously stated by the family of the French actor, known throughout the world, who has also been charged with rape since 2020, after a complaint from an actress, Charlotte Arnould.
“There is no doubt and no ambiguity about the fact that it is indeed the young girl in the image who is targeted by Gérard Depardieu’s comments,” assured the public television group in a press release.
Mandated on Thursday to “authenticate and certify the images and comments concerned”, a “bailiff was able to view the rushes” (the raw images, without editing), indicated France Télévisions.
These images were shot by writer and director Yann Moix during the actor’s trip to North Korea in 2018, and broadcast in “Complément d’investigation” on December 7 on France 2.
We see Gérard Depardieu multiplying misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, and uttering others of a sexual nature when a little girl on horseback appears in the image.
Yann Moix’s lawyer, Me Jérémie Assous, for his part affirmed on BFMTV that these images were a “work of fiction”: Yann Moix was sent to North Korea “as a director and his main and almost sole actor Gérard Depardieu” whose “role is to overplay his own role” and “to be vulgar” in certain scenes.
The France 2 show sparked intense controversy, with the actor facing accusations of rape and sexual assault, which he denies.
Questioned on Wednesday in the program “C à vous”, Mr. Macron replied: “There are sometimes outbursts over comments made, I am wary of the context […] I have seen the images, I have also heard that there were controversies over the words that were out of step with the images.”
He also said he was a “great admirer” of the actor and said he “hated” “manhunts”, comments which sparked protests from feminist movements.
On December 17, Gérard Depardieu’s family (his children Julie, Roxane and Jean, his niece Delphine and his ex-wife Élisabeth) denounced “cutaways […] necessarily suspicious since we can edit them as we want “.
French actress Carole Bouquet, former companion of Gérard Depardieu, for her part said she was “afraid for him” Thursday evening on television.
“This media court continues, it’s been going on for months and it’s killing a man. I can not support it. I have no possible tenderness for someone who turns out to be a monster, but that is not the case with Gérard,” she continued.
