At the Paris police court,
We thought, for a moment, that this was the Mediapart trial. But the president of the police court wanted to immediately set things straight. “There is only one purpose for this hearing: to provide a judicial response to acts of violence. It is certainly not a media platform,” recalls the magistrate. This Tuesday, the room is full of journalists. It must be said that the defendant and the victim are prominent public figures. The first is a famous actress and director. The second is the co-founder and publishing director of the Mediapart site. Dark suit, blue shirt, Edwy Plenel takes the stand to recount the attack of which he was the victim just two years ago.
The facts date back to February 22, 2022. That evening, the journalist had dinner with Jean-Pierre Mignard, a lawyer friend, in a restaurant in the 12th arrondissement of the capital. Suddenly, around 9 p.m., a woman “who looked like she was having dinner alone with her phone and headphones” got up and threw herself at him, he said. “Without a word, without a comment, without a sentence,” she grabs him by the hair, throws his head back and pretends to spit on him. Then she leaves the restaurant in a hurry. The staff of the establishment, who did not have time to react to this attack, identified the client. This is the actress and director Maïwenn Le Besco. Edwy Plenel filed a complaint “on principle” a few days later. He experienced this “very violent” “physical attack” with “stunning”.
A link to the publication of an article
The director of Mediapart does not know Maïwenn “neither from Eve nor from Adam”. He is therefore very quickly certain of one thing: he has been “targeted and attacked because of the social function” he occupies. He understands in fact that this attack is linked to the publication of a series of articles on Luc Besson. Maïwenn married the director in 1992. She was 16, he was 32. The following year, she gave birth to a baby girl. The couple broke up a few weeks after the film’s release The fifth Elementin 1997. Since then, an actress, Sand Van Roy, has accused the director of having raped her several times between March 2016 and May 2018. An investigation was opened by the courts and his ex-wife was heard in this context by the police.
Beige jacket, brown pants, Maïwenn does not just recognize the facts. She claims them. That evening, she was supposed to have dinner with a person who, at the last moment, canceled her order. She saw the director of Mediapart in the restaurant. “The blood came to me,” she remembers. She wanted to spit in his face “but the spit didn’t come out the way I would have liked.” She then “prevented” Edwy Plenel from getting up “by pressing on his head”. Then she “left without saying anything”. “How do you view your behavior that evening? », asks the president. “It does not live up to the upheaval that this has been in my life, this betrayal of Mediapart,” she replies. “I don’t apologize and I don’t regret,” she adds. A spit and a hair pulling is nothing compared to the tsunami that it was in my intimate life. »
“I did not defend Luc Besson because he was my attacker”
Maïwenn says she was contacted by Marine Turchi, a journalist from Mediapart who was investigating the accusations of rape against Luc Besson. The two women spoke for an hour on the phone and met the next day at the actress’s home for three hours. “I told him I didn’t want to appear in this story. They knew I didn’t want to make statements. » One day, she discovers an article from Mediapart containing “bits” of his hearing before the judicial police. “These are supposed to be rooms reserved for justice, not Mediapart,” she complains. Above all, this article “does not reflect” what she said to the police. With a troubled voice, she says to Edwy Plenel: “I did not defend Luc Besson because he was my attacker, it is wrong to say that. »
Calmly, the director of Mediapart emphasizes that Marine Turchi, who specializes in sexist and sexual violence, did not “betray” her word: as promised, the journalist did not use “any of the statements” made to her by the actress during their interview. “Mediapart only mentioned a court document that Paris Match had already cited before,” he proclaims.
An “act of intimidation”
“We are not in a case of defamation but of delinquency, of willful violence,” insists the newspaper’s lawyer, Me Pierre-Emmanuel Blard. The extracts from the document published by the site are, he says, “of public interest”. He describes this attack as an act of “intimidation”. “This is just a case of violence like we regularly see before this court,” also observes the prosecutor. Noting that the defendant “shows no regret about her actions”, he requires “a severe sentence: 700 euros out of the 750 incurred”.
Maïwenn’s lawyer, Me Jean Aittouares, also recognizes that “the offense has been established”. Forgetting that the media are independent and that they do not need permission to publish an article, he tries as best he can to justify his client’s action. “She felt betrayed,” he assures, before asking for an exemption from sentence. “She’s not a delinquent, she’s someone who had a blood attack. » Finally, the court sentences Maïwenn to a fine of 400 euros. She will also have to pay 1 euro to Edwy Plenel, 1,500 euros to Mediapart, and pay the legal costs of the victim and the newspaper.