Clooney blasts Trump as Huppert wins at ‘French Oscars’

PARIS: Isabelle Huppert and her hit thriller “Elle” were the big winners late Friday at the “French Oscars” — the Cesars — in a highly political ceremony marked by Hollywood star George Clooney warning that freedom had to be defended in the face of Donald Trump’s US presidency.

“Courage Trumps fear. Right always Trumps might,” the American actor said before quoting war reporter Edward F Morrow’s famous condemnation of the McCarthyite Communist witchhunts of the 1950s.

“Let’s not confuse dissent with disloyalty. We must not walk in fear of one another, we must not be driven by fear into an age of unreason,” he said.

Watched by his wife, the BritishLebanese human rights lawyer, Amal Clooney, who is pregnant with twins, the actor said, “We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home.

“We have to work harder not to let hate win,” insisted Clooney, who was a supporter of Democratic Party candidate Hillary Clinton, as he received an honorary Cesar.

“Elle,” a subversive thriller about a woman who not only takes revenge on her rapist but holds him in her power, won best film and Huppert, 63, the best actress award.

Her mesmerising performance in such a slippery and morally complex story has won her some of the best reviews of her career, and made her one of the favorites for the best actress Oscar on Sunday.

With France’s troubled suburban estates again rising up in protest after two high-profile police brutality cases, “Divines,” a stirring story of the friendship between two young girls from immigrant families, also triumphed.