The foreign press has plenty to write about the “monster” of French cinema. And even more so after the publication of the column in Le Figaro, signed by more than fifty French cinema personalities on December 25, according to which the 75-year-old star is the victim of a “torrent of hatred” after several accusations of sexual assault. Not to mention the support of President Macron himself, reaffirming that “Gérard” was the pride of France, just after the broadcast of images from a documentary by Further investigation testifying to obscene comments made by the actor about women and girls.
Across the Atlantic, the New York Times sees in this column “an additional sign of the complicated reaction to the #MeToo movement in France”, recalling that the actor with more than 200 cinematographic works was indicted for rape in December 2020 and accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women. In Switzerland, daily life The weather speaks of a “fracture line that has shaken the French cultural scene for years around the debate on the separation between certain men and their work”, recalling the controversy of the César awarded in 2020 to Roman Polanski for his film I accuse, accused of rape and sexual assault by around ten women.
In Russia, of which he has been a citizen since 2013, the accusations of sexual violence targeting the interpreter of Cyrano and Danton hardly seem to move the national press: “If, previously, the French actor did not hesitate to openly declare that “he had 20 children from 10 different women and his Casanova record was clean, he will now have to choose his words carefully when he talks about his romantic adventures”, says there Komsomolskaya Pravda. Unfortunately, “the MeToo era has not spared Gérard Depardieu”, laments the Russian daily, which wants to believe that “France has become accustomed to this type of scandal, and that Depardieu will remain a sacred monster for his compatriots”.