French President Emmanuel Macron this week condemned a so-called “manhunt” against Gérard Depardieu, the embattled French actor whose global fame has been tarnished in recent years by allegations of sexual harassment and assault.
Macron's comments, which drew strong criticism, came after a documentary aired in France this month showed the actor making crude sexual and sexist comments during a trip to North Korea in 2018.
Depardieu, 74, has come under renewed scrutiny in the wake of the documentary, including new allegations of sexual assault, the withdrawal of several international awards and the removal of an effigy of him from the Musée Grévin, a Paris wax museum. He has denied any wrongdoing.
Rima Abdul Malak, France's culture minister, said she was “disgusted” by Depardieu's comments in the documentary and that a disciplinary hearing would decide whether he should also lose his Legion of Honor, France's highest decoration.
But in a television interview on Wednesday evening, Macron strongly defended Depardieu, once one of France's most prominent and prolific leaders. Macron said Depardieu “makes France proud” and castigated an “era of mistrust” towards prominent artists and cultural figures.
“One thing you will never see me in is a manhunt,” Macron told France 5 television, describing himself as an “admirer” of Depardieu.
As president of France, Macron is the Grand Master of the Order of the Legion of Honor, an award created by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802 for “outstanding services” in a field and given to Depardieu in 1996. Macron said his culture minister had exceeded “a little too much.”
“Am I going to start withdrawing the Legion of Honor from artists or officials if they say things that shock me?” Macron said. “The answer is no.”
“You can blame someone – maybe there are victims and I respect them and I want them to be able to defend their rights,” he added. “But there is also a presumption of innocence,” he said.
Macron's comments reflected the mixed reaction to the #MeToo movement in France, where the reckoning with sexism was welcomed by feminist groups, but also raised concerns about the influence of puritanical sexual mores and cancel culture imported from America.
The French film industry has grappled with several high-profile allegations of sexual abuse in recent years and taken steps to address them. But the country has also given a warm welcome to artists accused of abuse – including Johnny Depp and Louis CK – exposing a cultural divide with the United States.
Feminists and left-wing politicians said Thursday they were appalled by Macron's comments.
“Manhunts remain prohibited. The hunt for women, however, remains open,” said Osez Le Féminisme, a feminist group. said on social mediawhile Sandrine Rousseau, a Green MP, called Macron's comments “Another insult to the movement to give victims of sexual violence a voice.”
François Hollande, Macron's predecessor as president, criticized him for praising Depardieu's actions instead of expressing support for victims of sex crimes.
“No, we are not proud of Gérard Depardieu,” Hollande told France Inter radio, pointing out that Macron once called gender equality and the fight against sexism a top priority. “And this is how he deals with the issue of Gérard Depardieu?” said Hollande.
Depardieu is still an internationally recognized figure, having had roles in more than 250 films over the past 50 years, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
But in recent years he has been increasingly confronted with allegations of sexual abuse.
In interviews in April with Mediapart, an investigative news site, 13 women – actresses, makeup artists and production staff – accused Depardieu of making inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during filming. Two other women made similar allegations in interviews with France Inter this summer.
Depardieu has been accused of rape and sexual assault in a case involving Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who says he sexually assaulted her during informal rehearsals for a theater production in Paris in 2018, when she was 22.
Depardieu has not been convicted in connection with any of the allegations and has categorically denied any wrongdoing.
“I have never abused a woman,” he wrote in a rare letter to the newspaper Le Figaro in October.
“All my life I have been provocative, outgoing and sometimes rude,” Depardieu wrote, apologizing for “acting like a child trying to entertain the gallery.” But he added: “I am neither a rapist a predator.”
The documentary, which sparked a new wave of criticism, aired on France 2 this month and shows previously unseen footage of Depardieu on a trip to North Korea in 2018, where he repeatedly made extremely crude and uninhibited sexual and sexist comments about women.
The documentary suggests that Depardieu's sexual jokes, comments and behavior were commonplace and widely known on film sets, but that the French film industry rejected them.
Four women have accused Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct in the documentary, including Arnould and Hélène Darras, an actress who says he sexually assaulted her on a film set in 2008 and filed a lawsuit against him in September. Depardieu was not charged in this case.
After the documentary aired, Quebec announced it was stripping the actor of the Canadian province's highest honor, and a Belgian city where he once lived said it was stripping him of an honorary title.
This week, Depardieu's additional problems quickly piled up. The Musée Grévin said its wax statue, which first entered the museum in 1981, had been removed. A spokeswoman said this was “due to reactions from visitors who were very shocked by the actor's comments” and who then insulted staff.
On Wednesday, Ruth Baza, a Spanish journalist, told the newspaper La Vanguardia that Depardieu kissed and groped her without her consent when she was in Paris to interview him for a magazine article in 1995.
Like many officials in France – most notably Macron – Culture Minister Abdul Malak said she was “against cancel culture.”
“We won’t stop watching his films,” she told TV channel France 5 about Depardieu last week. However, she said his comments in the documentary could amount to sexual harassment and were “unbearable”, reflecting poorly on France.
“He is such a monument of world cinema,” Abdul Malak said, adding that she had received messages from ministers and other cultural figures from around the world “who are shocked and say, 'For us, he was such a symbol of France.' “.'”