EDITORIAL
Le Monde
The
presumption of innocence the French leader invoked in discussing the sexual
assault allegations against the actor is a principle worth defending. But to
proclaim pride in a man who regularly displays his contempt for France and his
admiration for Vladimir Putin is ludicrous.Published on December 30, 2023, at
12:37 pm (Paris) Time to2 min.
Since 2017
and the revelations about predatory film producer Harvey Weinstein, the wave
that has liberated the expression of women victims of sexist and sexual
violence has also shaken up the way societies, in France as elsewhere, view
these acts and their perpetrators, whether anonymous or famous. Because their
lives are scrutinized by public opinion as a whole and because their behavior
is considered emblematic, artists have fueled debate, often scandal and
sometimes progress.
That's why
television channel France 2's December 7 broadcast of footage of Gérard
Depardieu shot five years earlier, in which the actor makes demeaning remarks
about women and a young girl, caused a stir in the country, even before French
President Emmanuel Macron addressed the issue. For years now, the gulf has been
widening between the brilliant actor, French figure and international star and
the man under investigation in 2020 for rape and sexual assault, and the target
of multiple accusations about his behavior on film sets.
By
declaring that the actor "makes France proud" on France 5 on December
20, Macron has nonetheless turned the Depardieu affair into a weapon of
political combat and committed a serious error. How can the man who claims to
have made violence against women and equality between women and men "the
two great causes of [his] two terms in office" –without a word for those
who claim to be the actor's victims – associate such detestable and unworthy
behavior with the country he embodies as head of state?
The
presumption of innocence, which Macron invoked, is obviously a principle to be
defended. And the fact that Depardieu has "delivered some of the most
beautiful texts" is indisputable. But to proclaim pride in a man who
regularly flaunts his contempt for France and his admiration for Vladimir
Putin, boasts of his tax exemptions and claims to be "still Russian"
despite the war against Ukraine is aberrant.
We all know
the president's taste for counterpoint, "disruption" and en même
temps (a refrain commonly used for positioning himself as a unifying centrist).
A few days after his defense of an immigration law inspired by the far right,
his praise of Depardieu appears above all as a further nod to the most
reactionary part of public opinion, particularly to men who consider women's
speech as an intolerable challenge to their domination. He is thus pledging his
support to voters who, in their detestation of "woke culture," fear
that their supposed superiority in terms of identity, race or sex will be
called into question.
In so
doing, Macron is allowing the extreme right to score additional points in the
cultural arena. By appearing to lend credence to the refuted theory that the
damning report on Depardieu had been manipulated, and by finding himself
trapped by a maneuver designed to turn the actor's defense into a reactionary
banner (illustrated by the open letter from cinema personalities written by an
activist close to identitarian spheres), Macron is shifting positions. He is
moving further away, not only from the persona open to diversity and societal
progress that he has claimed to embody, but also from his role as a
"bulwark" against the far right, a decisive factor in his two
elections. It's a gloomy omen as he approaches his "rendezvous with the
nation" announced for January 2024
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