Gérard Depardieu, indicted for rape since 2020, is at the heart of a media scandal in a column published last night on the Figaro website following the broadcast of shocking images and comments of a sexual and insulting nature from the actor in in the show “Complément d’investigation” on France 2.
In the column published this Monday, December 25 evening on the Figaro website, nearly sixty personalities from the world of culture denounce the “lynching” of the “last sacred monster” of cinema. For a few days, Gérard Depardieu faces numerous criticisms following the broadcast of images of the actor with misogynistic, insulting and sexual remarks addressed to women, but also to a little girl, in the program “Complement of investigation ” on the France 2 channel. The broadcast of this program caused a wave of shock in the media and on social networks.
Among the personalities to react in the forum are big names in French cinema, actresses Nathalie Baye, Emmanuelle Seigner, Carole Bouquet, Victoria Abril or Charlotte Rampling, actors Jacques Weber, Pierre Richard, Benoit Poelvoorde or Gérard Darmon, director Bertrand Blier, but also many singers like Jacques Dutronc, Roberto Alagna, Carla Bruni, Arielle Dombasle or Afida Turner, or even the architect Rudy Ricciotti.
In the text published on the website of our colleagues, the artists write: “Gérard Depardieu is probably the greatest of actors. The last sacred monster of cinema. We can no longer remain silent in the face of the lynching that is falling upon him, facing to the torrent of hatred which pours down on his person, without nuance, in the most complete amalgam and in defiance of a presumption of innocence from which he would have benefited, like everyone else, if he were not the giant of the cinema that it is”.
“When we attack Gérard Depardieu in this way, it is art that we attack. Through his genius as an actor, Gérard Depardieu contributes to the artistic influence of our country. (…) Whatever it happens, no one will ever be able to erase the indelible trace of his work which our era is forever marked by. The rest, everything else, concerns justice, only justice. Exclusively”, they add.
While the Head of State had already reacted publicly to defend Gérard Depardieu, the France Télévisions group assured last Friday that the passage in the program about the little girl had been “authenticated” by a bailiff, and that he had not been modified during editing, as the actor’s family had previously claimed.