French President Emmanuel Macron defended actor Gérard Depardieu and said calls to strip him of his Legion of Honour medal in the wake of multiple sexual assault allegations amounted to a “witch hunt,” according to multiple reports.
“I am a great admirer of Gérard Depardieu,” Macron said Wednesday night during an appearance on the French talk show C à Vous. The president insisted that the growing number of allegations against the renowned actor do not bring shame on the country.
“As president of the republic and as a citizen, I say he makes France proud,” Macron said.
The comments were followed by news Thursday that a Spanish journalist and writer was the latest woman to file a complaintagainst Depardieu,telling Spanish police he sexually abused her during an interview in Paris in 1995, The Associated Press reported. The accusations will be relayed to French authorities, the report said.
Even before that, Depardieu earlier this month was accused by actor Hélène Darras of sexual assault on the set of the 2007 film “Disco.”
The recent claims followed allegations in a lawsuit brought by Charlotte Arnould in 2018 that the actor assaulted her twice in his home. French authorities charged him with rape in 2020 in relation to Arnould’s accusations, which led the Paris Court of Appeal to launch a formal investigation against the actor.
Thirteen other women have separately accused the “Cyrano de Bergerac” actor of sexual misconduct.
Depardieu, 74, strenuously denies all the allegations, and addressed those brought by Arnould in an open letter earlier this year that said he was “neither a rapist, nor a predator.”
In recent weeks, Depardieu also thrust into the spotlight after a French television documentary showed him making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea, The Financial Times reported.
While Macron defended the “Green Card” actor, the French culture minister, Rima Abdul Malak, said this week that she would open a “disciplinary procedure” against Depardieu. Macron said she went “a bit too far,” The AP reported.
“One thing you’ll never see me do is take part in witch-hunts. I hate that,” Macron said, adding that the Legion of Honour is not a “moral tool” and should not be removed “based on a documentary.”
“It’s not on the basis of a report or this or that, that I would take the Legion of Honour away from an artist,” Macron said.
“There may be victims, but there is also a presumption of innocence,” he said, adding that he wanted Depardieu to be able to “defend his rights like everyone else” and “continue to work, to create.”
Women rights activists on Thursday leaped on Macron’s comments.
Activist group Osez le feminisme said on X that Macron “is not a feminist president.”
“No word for the victims who are ‘hunted’ by sexual predators,” the group said in a flurry of post and reposts criticizing his comments.
“We, the prey, are facing a man (Depardieu) who describes himself as a ‘great hunter,’ yet who, in the words of the president, becomes the victim of a ‘manhunt’,” the group said in another post. “Manhunting remains prohibited. The hunt for women remains open.”
Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, said on BFM TV that Macron’s comments were “very serious” because “he is judging women who filed a complaint, women who spoke out,” The AP reported. “He’s taking sides.”