A week has passed since the broadcast by France 2 of the report against Complément d’investigation, devoted to the accusations of rape and sexual assault made against Gérard Depardieu. Cinema and audiovisual personalities react in turn to the comments made by the actor. On Wednesday, December 13, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak spoke and judged the remarks “contrary to the dignity of human beings, to respect for women and children.” “What shocked me were the comments we see in this report made by Gérard Depardieu. They are said in a joking and provocative tone even though they are extremely serious, they are terribly violent,” she declared on France Info.
The documentary Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre revealed to the public that a second complaint for sexual assault had been filed by Hélène Darras against the actor. The 74-year-old actor, subject to several accusations of rape and assault, was before this complaint already the subject of an investigation and indicted since December 2020 following Charlotte Arnould’s complaint.
According to the minister, these accusations do not allow the executive to ban the actor from acting in films. “Each director, each director, each screenwriter is free to make his or her choices. We are a country of freedom of expression and creation, if it wishes to offer roles to Gérard Depardieu, it is up to them. It’s not up to me to judge,” explained the minister. Rima Abdul Malak instead wants to accelerate the fight through training. “Since December 1, I had announced that training in the fight against violence and sexual and gender-based harassment was also going to be done on film sets and was going to become compulsory with conditional aid.”
For its part, the National Center for Cinema and Animated Images (CNC) prefers to play with the financial aspect. “We made CNC aid conditional on the obligation to train film crews. We created a parity bonus so that there would be more women on set. If a team is equal on a shoot, it receives 15% more aid from the CNC,” adds the minister.
