To realize how far we have come, perhaps we should start by taking a look at the letters from readers. “My greatest pain today is to see Bertrand suffer like this”, one can read on August 13, 2003 in the Unbreakable. “I could never say ‘this guy is garbage, a bastard'”, abounds another reader. On Le Monde.fr, one of the few newspapers to have had a site since the early 2000s where you can leave comments, a user laments that “Bertrand Cantat must bear the cross of all men who hit their wives, on the pretext that he has a known name”*. When this message was published on August 25, the Black Desire singer had been sleeping in prison in Vilnius, Lithuania for three weeks. On the night of July 26 to 27, he beat up his partner, actress Marie Trintignant. Repatriated to France in a desperate state, she died on August 1.
The case caused an earthquake in public opinion. And if it happened today, it would certainly, like twenty years ago, make headlines for weeks. It contains all the elements to feed the media soap opera: the archi-popular rocker, face of militancy, who kills one of the most famous actresses of her generation, daughter of figures of the 7th art. Their story – much like their past lives – fuels curiosity. Between Paris, Bordeaux and Vilnius, the journalists investigate, fed by talkative lawyers, disappointed that the Lithuanian justice refuses that the file be pleaded in France. But would we speak today of the murder of Marie Trintignant in the same way? Would we write what we wrote in 2003?
“The story is told as if they were jointly responsible”
AT 20 minutes, as elsewhere, the answer is unanimous: no, definitely not. On our side, for example, we would never title “Passionate Trial” as we did on the eve of the first hearing. “Our view of violence against women has evolved, especially in recent years with MeToo, specifies Floréal Hernandez, editor-in-chief. Today, it is obvious to all of us that we do not kill for love, but at the time, there was a lack of knowledge on this subject. »
In 2003, the term “domestic violence” was almost absent from all the articles on the case. In the Obs, we speak of “a dispute having gone badly”, of a “violent quarrel”. In The world, of a dispute “which degenerated into a fight”. On France 2, there is talk of a “tragic camera” in which “two lives, two careers [ont été] broken”. “In the vast majority of articles, the lexical field is that of love, not violence, notes Anne-Sophie Jahn, author from a recent survey on the subject, Black Desire. The story is told as if they were co-responsible: they drank, argued, she died. »
Discredit the victim
Bertrand Cantat is sometimes even presented as the victim. A column published in Release by Jacques Lanzmann begins as follows: “There were blows, repeated blows, dealt. It’s inexcusable, but it’s explainable. What happened before the beatings? Did they suddenly leave? Or, on the contrary, were they contained, retained, until the ultimate humiliation? The writer does not beat around the bush: Marie Trintignant pushed her murderer to the limit. “Words hurt more than blows,” he insists. In many articles, the words of the singer describing, during his auditions, his companion as “hysterical”, are repeated as such.
Me Olivier Metzner, who defends Bertrand Cantat, makes no secret of his strategy: to discredit the victim. It is recalled that she had four children from four different fathers, it is said that she had drug problems… “The defense succeeded in this tour de force of presenting the victim and his relatives as not very friendly people, recalls a former journalist from a press agency. She was a bit of a pain in the ass, her family did too much. He, on the contrary, was the poor guy who found himself in something bigger than himself. ” In rock & folk, the journalist even estimates the sentence of the Cantat clan higher than that of the family of the victim. “That the image of the Cantat family, of his ex (the mother of his children…), of his brother, of the group that has come, hurts…! Even more than that of the Trintignant clan decomposed by pain. It is that death is clean at least. Terrible, but definitive. »
“We didn’t know much about domestic violence”
The autopsy is however without appeal: 19 traces of blows were noted on the face and the body of the victim. Above all, the report invalidates the initial version of Bertrand Cantat, according to which Marie Trintignant hit her head against a radiator after he pushed her. It is indeed the blows to the face that caused the cerebral edema at the origin of the death. “If it happened now, the defense would not employ this strategy. And if she did, it would backfire,” assures Frédéric Vézard, then a senior reporter at the Parisian.
He was sent to Vilnius shortly after the events, investigated the case for many months, then wrote a book in 2007 on the subject, Bertrand Cantat, Marie Trintignant, love to death. “Today, we would be much more critical of Cantat’s speech: the accusations of hysteria, the argument that gets out of hand… We know that these are classic arguments but at the time, we didn’t know much about domestic violence, we didn’t know the extent of the phenomenon and its systemic nature, “he says.
But in the 2000s, the issue of violence against women did not interest many editorial staff. “There was this idea that what happens in the bedroom is not newsworthy,” recalls the former agent. Everyone is also convinced, if the case had not had such a cast, no one would have ever heard of it. “I don’t know if I’ve ever used the expression ‘crime of passion’ in an article, but at the start of my career, it was said and it didn’t shock anyone”, assures Stéphane Durand-Souffland, legal columnist at the Figaro, who covered the trial in 2004. Today, it wouldn’t occur to him to use it. “We are sensitive to the spirit of the times, our outlook is changing,” he continues. By rereading his articles, in particular one in which he evokes a singer “always in love” who, from the dock, reaffirms his love for Marie Trintignant, he believes that he would qualify his remarks today. “I would remind you that all violent men swear that they love their victim. I know now; at the time, I did not know. »
“Nadine Trintignant’s speech found less echo than that of the Cantat clan”
The victim’s family and their lawyer, Me George Kiejman, struggled to bring out the thesis of a violent man against women. “It seems quite crazy but at the time, Nadine Trintignant’s speech found less echo than that of the Cantat clan”, recalls Frédéric Vézard, who recalls that the investigation carried out in France did not allow to bring to light a history of violence. Kristina Rady, the former companion of Bertrand Cantat, mother of their two children, is probably his best ally. “At trial, his testimony was one of the strongest moments. She has a lot of charisma and when she repeats that he never raised his hand on her, we believe her, she seems very sincere, ”recalls Stéphane Durand-Souffland. At the end of a relatively expeditious trial which will not dwell very much on the merits of the case, Bertrand Cantat was sentenced to eight years in prison.
How long did it take for Marie Trintignant to be fully considered a victim? And him as a perpetrator of domestic violence? His real downfall may have come from the one who protected him tooth and nail, Kristina Rady. In 2010, the one who has become his companion again commits suicide. Even if the investigation does not make it possible to make a link with the behavior of Bertrand Cantat, the opinion does not believe in coincidences. “His image is tarnished but that does not cause a tidal wave, he did a sold-out tour that same year”, notes Anne-Sophie Jahn. It was she who unearthed, in 2013, a long message left by Kristina Rady on her parents’ answering machine. She recounts frankly the violence of which she is the victim.
From then on, support, even the closest, especially within Noir Désir, became more and more discreet. His desire to resume his career at all costs divides. In October 2017, coincidence: Bertand Cantat made the cover of Inrocks as the MeToo movement emerges in the United States. This time, the front page created such controversy that the weekly was forced to apologize. This is perhaps also the Cantat affair: a sadly commonplace case of domestic violence which has made it possible, over the past twenty years, to take the pulse of society.
* These letters from the readers are taken from Anne-Sophie Jahn’s book, ” Black Desire » (Flammarion)