The passage from the program “Complément d'investigation”, in which the actor Gérard Depardieu appears to make cheeky remarks about a little girl, has been “certified” by a bailiff, France Télévisions said in a press release on Friday.
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This reaction comes after comments made by President Emmanuel Macron on France 5 on Wednesday that the sequence may have been changed during editing, as the actor's family had previously indicated.
The latter has also been accused of rape since 2020 after actress Charlotte Arnould filed a complaint.
“There is no doubt and no ambiguity that it is in fact the young girl in the picture who is the target of Gérard Depardieu's comments,” assured the public television group, according to which “the report “Additional investigations against Gérard Depardieu” were carried out with the utmost respect for ethical rules.”
A bailiff appointed on Thursday to “authenticate and certify the images and comments in question” was able to view the images (the raw images without editing), France Télévisions said.
He “certifies in his observation that it is a single sequence in which Gérard Depardieu observes an equestrian performance”.
He also certifies that “he was able to perceive Gérard Depardieu's comments during the sequence and that, with the exception of the young girl, only drivers who appeared to be male appeared in the foreground of the cameras.”
These images were taken by writer Yann Moix during the actor's trip to North Korea in 2018 and aired on France 2's investigative magazine “Complément d'investigation” on December 7th.
We see Gérard Depardieu multiply misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, and others of a sexual nature when a little girl comes into the picture on a horse.
This show sparked a huge controversy after the actor was accused of rape and sexual assault, which he denies.
Asked on Wednesday about the actor on the show “C à vous”, Mr Macron replied: “Sometimes there are outbursts over comments made, I am careful about the context (…) I have seen the pictures, that I heard that too.” There was controversy over the words not matching the images.