2024-01-16 22:52:28
Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday evening that he had “no regrets” for having defended the presumption of innocence of French cinema icon Gérard Depardieu, indicted for rape and targeted by several complaints, while regretting not “not having said enough how important the words of women “victims of violence” are.
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“I have no regrets for having defended the presumption of innocence for a public figure, an artist in this case, as I did for political leaders,” declared during a press conference the head of state, who defended Gérard Depardieu at the end of December, hailing a “huge actor” who “makes France proud”, and denouncing “a manhunt”.
But Emmanuel Macron admitted to having “a regret at that moment, which is not having said enough how important the words of women who are victims of this violence are and how important this fight is for me”.
Gérard Depardieu, 75, is the target of three complaints of sexual assault or rape – accusations that he refutes. He has also been indicted for rape since 2020, following a complaint from an actress in her twenties, Charlotte Arnould.
Archive photo, QMI Agency
During these remarks made in December, the Head of State reacted to a report during which the actor made numerous misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, which shocked part of the population.
Feminist associations have described the President of the Republic’s statements as “spitting” in the face of victims of sexual violence, and denounced a “reversal of guilt”.
“Since the first day (of the five-year term, editor’s note) and even before, the subject of violence against women is a priority and we will continue to fight against this social phenomenon,” Emmanuel Macron said on Tuesday.
“I am pleased that speech is being freed and I hope that it can be freed as much as possible,” he added. “But I think that our role is to allow its framework, that justice can do its work, that we protect the women who are threatened, but that here too we do not do it in forgetting the constitutional principles that are ours, including the presumption of innocence.”
An actor with more than 200 films in cinema and television, with instinctive acting and work bulimia, Gérard Depardieu has interpreted the great heroes of national literature, from Cyrano de Bergerac to Jean Valjean from “Miserables”, including Obelix.
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