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CULTURE

Depardieu behaviour ‘shames France’: culture minister

French actor Gerard Depardieu is under increasing pressure following the release of a new documentary.

French actor Gerard Depardieu is once again in the firing line.
French actor Gerard Depardieu is once again in the firing line. (Photo by Anne-Christine POUJOULAT / AFP)

The behaviour of French cinema superstar Gerard Depardieu, charged with rape and facing new scrutiny after sexist comments were broadcast in a television documentary, shames France, the culture minister said on Friday.

Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak also said that the Grand Chancery of the Legion of Honour would initiate a “disciplinary procedure” to decide whether to strip Depardieu of the country’s top honour.

Depardieu, 74, was charged with rape in 2020 and has also faced 13 accusations of sexual harassment or assault.

A documentary titled “The Fall of the Ogre” shows the actor on a 2018 trip to North Korea repeatedly making explicit sexual comments in the presence of a female interpreter and sexualising a small girl riding a horse. It was aired last week on France 2 television.

“Directors will decide if he has roles in films in the future or not,” Abdul-Malak told reporters in the southern town of Moissac.

“I don’t think he has many offers arriving now on his desk.”

READ MORE: French film star faces backlash after sexually suggestive comments

She said the comments broadcast in the France 2 report were “absolutely shocking” and she was “disgusted” by his behaviour.

She denounced “an attitude which is intended to be joking and provocative, but is in fact disrespectful and undignified and shames France, because he is a monument of cinema throughout the world.”

‘Disciplinary procedure’

Speaking on France 5, the culture minister indicated the actor might be stripped of the Legion of Honour he received from then president Jacques Chirac in 1996.

“A Legion of Honour distinguishes a man, an artist, an attitude, values,” she said.

“It so happens that I spoke with the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honour, General (Francois) Lecointre,” she said, adding that a “disciplinary procedure” would be initiated to decide whether the award should be revoked.

“It will be up to them to decide,” she said. “It’s important to raise this issue.”

At the same time she said the French would not stop watching films featuring Depardieu.

The actor — who has more than 200 titles to his name, including 1990 comedy “Green Card” and Netflix series “Marseille” — has denied any wrongdoing.

“Never ever have I abused a woman,” he wrote in Le Figaro newspaper in October.

The Canadian province of Quebec on Wednesday stripped Depardieu of its top honour over his “scandalous” comments against women in the France 2 report.

French investigators are also looking into the death of an actress who was one of the first to accuse Depardieu of sexual assault, prosecutors said this week.

Several media outlets have reported that Emmanuelle Debever died by suicide aged 60 on December 7, the day the France 2 documentary was aired.

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CRIME

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The head of France's top cinema institution Dominique Boutonnat denied sexually assaulting his godson as he went on trial Friday in a case that has led to calls for him to step down.

French cinema boss on trial for sexual assault

The trial comes as French cinema reels from a renewed #MeToo reckoning that has seen several big names, including acting legend Gerard Depardieu, accused of sexual abuse.

READ ALSO: French actor Gérard Depardieu to be tried for sexual assault in October

Activists have denounced Boutonnat’s continued leadership of the National Centre of Cinema (CNC), whose role includes overseeing measures to curb sexual violence in the industry.

His godson accuses him of trying to masturbate him during a holiday in Greece in 2020 when he was 19.

“I looked at him to find my godfather and that’s when I saw someone completely different… It was someone using me to masturbate,” the godson, who cannot be named for legal reasons, told the court.

Boutonnat responded in court that it was his godson who had initiated the situation and kissed him.

“I feel bad about leaving an ambiguous situation, but to say there was a sexual assault is false,” he told the court.

He was placed under investigation in February 2021 but still reappointed by the government as head of the CNC in July 2022.

Training to prevent abuse has in recent months become obligatory for films seeking public funding via the CNC.

The CNC told AFP that the case against Boutonnat came from “the private sphere” and had no relation to its activities.

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