“It’s a French-style MeToo that’s happening.” Laure Calamy has no doubt about it for a second: the Depardieu storm hitting France would be on the scale of the one that hit Hollywood in 2017 and led to the fall of the all-powerful producer Harvey Weinstein. Guest of France Inter on Tuesday, the actress first wanted to provide support to women who recounted their bad experience with Gérard Depardieu. “When we see the difficulty of filing a complaint, especially against a powerful man,” she says. The declarations of the President of the Republic are a snub in the face of the courage shown by these women.” “Justice will do its job,” she adds. But it’s important to come together, to support this speaking out, this courage.”
A reaction, one more in the “Depardieu gate”. A case which accelerated after the broadcast at the beginning of December of the episode of “Complément d’investigation” where we see the actor, targeted in total by three complaints for sexual assault or rape – which he refutes – , multiply misogynistic comments.
Laure Calamy is one of the signatories of a text entitled Address to the Old World, published on the Mediapart website on Sunday. “Several women have had the courage to testify, so many others continue to remain silent, too devastated or because they are afraid: this has nothing to do with art. We must admit that we can be overcome by grace in front of the camera, and behave in life like a dangerous predator,” we can read in this column which brings together, among others, Marilou Berry, Fanny Cottençon, Jean-Xavier by Lestrade, Anouk Grinberg, Clotilde Hesme, Alex Lutz, Anna Mouglalis or Colombe Schneck. “Art will not die if Gérard Depardieu recognizes the harm he has done, and apologizes,” they say in response to the text of support for the actor published on December 25 in Le Figaro, which states that by attacking him, “it is art that we are attacking”.
Since the publication of this column in our columns, reactions have multiplied in the landerneau of French cinema. Some artists have taken up their pen to point out the cowardice and indifference of an “old world”. The divide therefore seems irreducible between the pro and anti-Depardieu, but also and above all between two generations.
There are in fact two other counter-opinions relayed in the media in addition to “The Address to the Old World”. The first, published by the Cerveaux collective not available on the Mediapart blog, collected 8,000 signatures in 48 hours. Corinne Masiero, Médine, Léna Situations and Guillaume Meurice, are among those who validated this text where we can read: “We are here to remind you that art does not have to be made by idols outside the reality, art is not on the side of star whims. Art refuses to submit to their system. The production of art is not an abstraction located outside of social dynamics.”
The same alert is launched in the column published in Libération: “Sacred monsters do not exist. There are only ordinary men who have been given all the rights. (…) The France that makes us proud does not fight for the right to annoy, it is on the side of the alleged victims. (…) We are artists, writers, producers, personalities from the cultural sector, but above all we are citizens, and we refuse the prospect of artistic immunity,” explain artists like Lucie Lucas, Muriel Robin or Thomas Jolly. A barely disguised evocation of Emmanuel Macron’s comments in the show “C à Vous”. The President of the Republic insisted on the presumption of innocence from which Depardieu must benefit like everyone else. Before saying: “There is one thing you will never see me in, and that is manhunts. I hate that.”
A feeling shared by Myriam Boyer, signatory of the platform in support of Gérard Depardieu. “I didn’t sign to support (him) for what he did. But lynching drives me crazy. And for good reason: I was married to a man named John Berry who was a victim of McCarthyism. So, I know what it’s like to be in times when a society can seriously mess up,” explains the actress. And then to give a certain legitimacy to his words: “As a feminist I believe that I can bring it back, because I am a feminist from the very beginning, and in my life I have given all the proof of that.”
Unlike Myriam Boyer, several signatories of the pro-Depardieu platform – around ten on Tuesday evening – have since confided their discomfort, sometimes expressed regret, or even requested the withdrawal of their signature, like Nadine Trintignant. After Carole Bouquet, Yvan Attal, Charles Berling, Roberto Alagna, Pierre Richard, Jacques Weber in turn regretted his “blindness” on Monday. “As a reflex of friendship, I signed in haste, without inquiring,” says the actor and director. Yes, I signed, forgetting the victims and the fate of thousands of women around the world who suffer from a state of affairs that has been accepted for too long.” Before surrendering in front of the new generation: “If we were guilty of accepting behavior that is now unacceptable on film and theater sets, then yes I was guilty.”
A surrender, at least a regret shared by Patrice Leconte who admitted Tuesday on LCI: “I regret having signed.” The director of Maigret confided his annoyance towards “the cohort, the pack, the herd which gives its opinion on everything, all the time”. “All I can tell you is what I saw, what I experienced with him. I know he’s not exemplary, he was on the set of my film but he’s not exemplary all the time,” he comments. Before concluding: “Gérard Depardieu will never make films again… alas!”
