In turn, the signatories of the platform in support of Gérard Depardieu discard. This Monday, actor and director Jacques Weber regretted his “blindness”. He is one of the sixty signatories of a column from the pro-Depardieu camp calling for “not to erase” the icon of French cinema, published on Christmas Day in Le Figaro. Several of these personalities have since distanced themselves, including cinema personalities Carole Bouquet (former partner of the actor), Nadine Trintignant and Gérard Darmon.
“As a reflex of friendship, I signed in haste, without inquiring, yes I signed, forgetting the victims and the fate of thousands of women in the world who suffer from a state of affairs that has been accepted for too long,” writes Jacques Weber in a column published by Mediapart. And added: “My signature was another rape.” “Despite the love or admiration that his friends, his family and the cinema family have for him (Depardieu, editor’s note), we must not prevent the truth from emerging.” “If we were guilty of accepting behavior that is now unacceptable on film and theater sets, then yes I was guilty,” Jacques Weber also recognizes.
A counter-tribunal to denounce “the totem of impunity”
Having fallen from his pedestal after the broadcast at the beginning of December of images in which he multiplies misogynistic remarks, Gérard Depardieu, targeted in total by three complaints for sexual assault or rape which he refutes, divides the world of cinema and beyond. The 75-year-old actor has been indicted for rape since 2020 following a complaint from an actress in her twenties, Charlotte Arnould.
The column calling for “not to erase” Gérard Depardieu in return gave rise to several “counter-tribunals”, including one signed by some 8,000 artists. The latest, published Monday by Libération, proclaims that “art is not a totem of impunity”. “Sacred monsters don’t exist. There are only ordinary men to whom we have given all the rights,” it is written in this column signed by 150 personalities from the world of culture, including the actresses Muriel Robin, Alexandra Lamy and the director Thomas Jolly .