2023, the year Gérard Depardieu fell from his pedestal

Symbol of sexual violence and the crassest machismo for some, national pride for others, Gérard Depardieu, who celebrates his 75th birthday on Wednesday, has lost his aura as an untouchable icon.

Despite being indicted for rape in 2020, following a complaint from an actress in her twenties, Charlotte Arnould, Gérard Depardieu multiplied the filming with the eclecticism that characterizes him (Lost illusions, Retirement home, Green shutters, Maigret…). And kept its status as a sacred monster of French cinema, as there are not many of them anymore. Alain Delon, who divides by his reactionary positions, left the sets, just like Brigitte Bardot who stands out for her declarations against Islam. Only Catherine Deneuve, 80 years old, who in 2018 co-signed a highly commented column on the “freedom to annoy” women, continues to tour and be celebrated. The star has not spoken in recent days about Depardieu, with whom she has shared the stage ten times.

Indulgence

Beyond feminist circles, Gérard Depardieu has until now benefited from a certain indulgence. His loud-mouthed, willingly outrageous temperament has long attracted the sympathy of the public and the profession. His statements about rapes in which he allegedly took part in his youth certainly cost him his American career in the early 1990s but had little resonance in France. When an actress as popular as Sophie Marceau described it in 2015 as “predator” for his behavior on set, his words ring hollow.

The 7th art prefers to praise the actor with more than 200 films in cinema and television, with instinctive acting and work bulimia, who will have interpreted the great heroes of national literature, from Cyrano to Jean Valjean of Miserablepassing by Obelix.

Career on hiatus

But at the end of 2023, the clown Depardieu, who was able to urinate in a plane cabin in 2011, no longer makes people laugh. He put his career on hold and is now the most divisive artist in the country. Everything accelerated in less than a month, after the publication in the magazine Further investigation of images where he multiplies obscene statements towards women, as well as a little girl. The sequence is sickening. Depardieu is removed from the National Order of Quebec, loses his title of honorary citizen of a Belgian commune, sees his wax statue removed from the Grévin museum… Some cinema personalities publicly turn their backs on him, like actress Anouk Grinberg.

A pro-Depardieu camp is mobilizing: his family, including his daughter, actress Julie Depardieu, denounces “cabal”, his ex-partner Carole Bouquet defends “humor sometimes borderline” of a man who would be “incapable of harming a woman”. And on Tuesday, around sixty cultural figures denounced a “lynching” in a column in Le Figaro, including the director Bertrand Blier, the actresses Nathalie Baye or Charlotte Rampling, the actors Jacques Weber, Pierre Richard and Gérard Darmon, the singers Roberto Alagna, Carla Bruni, Arielle Dombasle or Jacques Dutronc.

Support from Macron

The Depardieu affair took on another dimension when Emmanuel Macron, in the midst of one of the deepest political crises of his presidency, the adoption of the immigration law with the support of the far right, took action and cause for the actor. The president denounces “manhunt” and disavows his Minister of Culture who questioned his Legion of Honor. “He made France, our great authors, our great characters known throughout the world (…) he makes France proud,” declared Emmanuel Macron.

The native of Châteauroux (center) has a conflicted history with his homeland, since he announced at the end of 2012 that he was surrendering his passport to protest against the taxation of the richest and opting for tax exile in Belgium. An admirer of the most authoritarian leaders, he also acquired Russian citizenship. On the judicial level, in addition to his indictment for rape, Depardieu, who rejects the accusations, is the target of a complaint for sexual assault filed by the actress Hélène Darras for facts a priori prescribed, as well as another in Spain by a journalist, Ruth Baza, accusing him of rape in 1995.

Depardieu’s supporters make his defense a symbol of the fight for the presumption of innocence. “You can accuse someone, there may be victims, but there is also a presumption of innocence that exists,” underlined Emmanuel Macron. “I just want to” that Gérard Depardieu “can defend their rights like everyone else” And “continue to work, to create”he added.