Evoking genius to defend ‘dark stars’ like Gérard Depardieu looks very French – and it is
On 20 December, during a 135-minute-long interview on French television, dedicated to topics such as the new law on immigration, the future bill on assisted dying, the war in Ukraine and the Israel-Hamas conflict, Emmanuel Macron was asked about Gérard Depardieu. France’s president could have chosen to be cautious and not comment on a case that has divided France. It would probably have been wiser to have remained silent, but Macron doesn’t do caution; he speaks his mind.
“You will never see me taking part in a manhunt,” he said. As for stripping the actor of the Légion d’honneur, a procedure recently started by his culture minister Rima Abdul Malak, Macron replied, looking straight at the interviewer: “The order of the Légion d’honneur is not a moral order.” His culture minister had “got ahead of herself”. Macron talked about his admiration for the actor, adding that Depardieu had “made France proud”. The backlash was immediate.
Fast rewind. In 2018, Charlotte Arnould filed a lawsuit against Depardieu accusing him of rape. The then 22-yearold aspiring actress had accepted an invitation to the actor’s home, where she says she was raped. Six days later, she went back to Depardieu’s home.
She says she was raped again. After a nine-month investigation, the case was dismissed. The police, having viewed CCTV footage from Depardieu’s house at the time of her visits, concluded that she had not been coerced. Arnould challenged the prosecutor’s decision and the case was reopened in 2020. The new investigation is ongoing.
Last April, the investigative news website Mediapart, known for its relentless pursuit of the powerful, published a series of articles in which 13 women accused the actor of sexist remarks and fondling on the set of 11 films shot between 2004 and 2022. Only one of them, Hélène Darras, filed a lawsuit against the actor for groping her on the film set of Disco in 2007 on which she worked as an extra. Depardieu has denied the accusations against him.
It is, however, the 7 December broadcast of the TV documentary Gérard Depardieu: The Fall ofan Ogre that has sparked what must now be called l’affaire Depardieu. Using footage leaked to the state broadcaster, the actor is seen during a trip to North Korea in 2018 making lewd remarks about women. His customary Rabelaisian wit has gone; instead he trades pathetic and embarrassing jokes that are anything but funny. It reeks of impotence. In English, it would be called a car crash. In French, we call it a shipwreck.
Those images triggered two reactions in the country. It has even felt at times like a generational war between old and young. Except for one generation, mine, born in the mid-70s, a foot in each camp, trying to keep the peace in a house called France. Feeling vindicated, the women accusing Depardieu see his words as evidence of a life of sexual impropriety, and are now calling the entire French movie industry into question. Their voices are growing louder, and their anger has yielded results. Canada has stripped the actor of the national order of Québec, the Grévin Museum in Paris (the French Madame Tussauds) has removed his waxwork. Depardieu, who has just turned 75, has been removed