“We didn’t have any alerts. We weren’t made aware of anything.” Wassim Beji, producer of Abbé Pierre, a life of struggle always says “in shock”a little more than two months after the publication of the Egaé investigation report in which women recount the touching of Abbé Pierre. Hands placed on breasts, forced kisses. There will also be testimonies of masturbation and forced fellatio. Attacks on vulnerable women and minors including a young child. “I have the feeling of having been duped, deeply betrayed by Abbé Pierre”reacts the producer.
The film team receives these revelations all the more violently because the promise of the biopic was precisely to tell the story of the private man behind the legend. The “real” Abbot Pierre. “His flaws, his faults, all his complexity” explains, during the promotion, the actor who plays him on screen, Benjamin Lavernhe. “When we discovered the abbot’s life, what we wanted to do was to tell his whole life, not just the totemic figure”adds the director, Frédéric Tellier, to the audience of the Atmosphères de Courbevoie festival. In his film, Abbé Pierre is a man with a fragile body, who falters under the weight of responsibilities. An Abbot Pierre courted by women, who breaks his vow of chastity.
To get closer “as close as possible to historical truth”Frédéric Tellier, immersed himself for nearly two and a half years in biographies and archives. He meets companions from the Emmaüs communities, officials from the Abbé Pierre Foundation, and interviews people who knew the abbot. “We never had the beginning of an ounce of suspicion. Nobody said to us ‘be careful, you should say this or that or meet this or that person…’. I spent intimate, sincere moments with these people, eye to eye”. When he learned about all these women, Frédéric Tellier, devastated, said he had, “the feeling of falling into a disgusting hole, of being a little dirty too and of not having completely done what needed to be done.”
Who knew when the film was being prepared? According to our information, during the year preceding the theatrical release, an event happened that would change everything. From May 2023, Emmaüs France receives the testimony of a woman, named “A” in the first report. She tells of “contacts on her chest, when she was a minor, in the family home”. A forced kiss also later, when she is an adult: “he inserted his tongue into my mouth in a brutal and totally unexpected way”. Heavy, insistent advances that she has to reject, even years later. Emmaüs International and the Abbé Pierre Foundation will be notified of this testimony from June 2023.
“I met this woman in September 2023, with other managers”recalls the former president of Emmaüs France, Antoine Sueur, who speaks for the first time on the subject. “For me, the idea was to listen to her positively, not to be suspicious. And it was like a punch. She was very marked by what had happened to her. I felt that that was going to be the starting point of something. She said: I’m sure I’m not alone, I’m asking you to do some investigative work, some research, some verification.. After this meeting, Emmaüs France, Emmaüs International and the Abbé Pierre Foundation agreed to further research. This is what will give rise to the Egaé group’s investigation.
At that time, the film had not yet been released. But it was presented at the Cannes Film Festival and the press gave it a lot of coverage. During the meeting with “A”, two participants also remember very well that she wondered about this biopic. How will he be supported by Emmaüs and the Abbé Pierre Foundation? “I confirmed to him that it was not our film, not a commissioned film”recalls Antoine Sueur. The former boss of Emmaüs France participates in a few previews, but at a minimum. Only “two interventions in debates”he said, “that is to say less than when the previous film on the abbot with Lambert Wilson was released in 1989. And at the time, I only held local functions”.
In his interventions, Antoine Sueur talks about the Emmaüs movement, the fight that remains to be fought, the duty of fraternity. Less of the man, of the figure of Abbé Pierre. “I didn’t know the dark side of Abbé Pierre, specifies the former director of Emmaüs France, I won’t hide from you that it took me a little time to absorb the shock”. But he does not warn the film crew: “we must understand that at that time, we were not yet in the affair and the revelations. We did not know where we were going. Do we always make the right choices? I made at best, I assume our share of errors and responsibility”.
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The Abbé Pierre Foundation is more directly linked to the preparation of the film. Laurent Desmard, last private secretary of the Abbot and honorary president of the Foundation, played a consulting role. “We worked a lot with Frédéric (Tellier), there was a great story, a great meeting between us”he says in the film’s DVD bonus features. He also shares his anecdotes and memories with the actors Benjamin Lavernhe and Emmanuelle Bercot. A job “friendly”, “unpaid” specify the production and the Abbé Pierre Foundation. “I have the impression, like the quarryman, of having given the block of marble. And they made something magnificent out of it”. During a previous investigation by the Investigation Unit, a former Emmaüs manager implicated Laurent Desmard: in the 2010s, “he told me that we had to watch Abbé Pierre when he was with women. He feared that he would suddenly put his hands on their breasts”. A denied testimony “firmly” by the interested party.
During the promotion of the film, Laurent Desmard learned of the existence of the testimony of “A” and of the investigation which was taking place internally*. He also chose not to inform the film crew. The promotion therefore continues and he participates, as does Christophe Robert, the general delegate of the Abbé Pierre Foundation. On France Inter, on November 8, 2023, the latter said he was “upset by the film” which shows “the fragilities” of Abbé Pierre.
Why not have slowed down the media coverage around the film? “Stopping the promotion of the film meant making public the only testimony we were aware of at the time,” specifies the communications agency of the Emmaüs movements to the Radiofrance Investigation Unit. “We thought, and continue to think, that communicating before having done investigative work and gathering several testimonies would have been dangerous. This would have made a single victim bear the weight of the revelation and would undoubtedly have triggered immense resistance in society to recognize the reality of the facts”. In March 2024, while the Egaé group is already working on the collection of testimonies, the Foundation is still promoting the release of the film, by communicating about the release of the DVD.
Only on the eve of the report’s publication, in July 2024, “so we don’t get caught in the face” as a member of the film team tells us, whom Laurent Desmard personally warns Benjamin Lavernhe and Frédéric Tellier.
“I don’t have any scores to settle but I think if we had known about it, it could have stopped the release of the film,” reacts the director: “what is obvious is that we would not have done the same promotion”. However, Frédéric Tellier also understands the arguments of Emmaüs and the Abbé Pierre Foundation, which he respects enormously. “I don’t see them being maneuverers or liars, while they are constantly helping the most deprivedhe continues, I made a film thinking that the subject was there… and it’s not there. Abbé Pierre changed the world of poverty. Does all this crap cancel out his fights? It taints them in any case.”.
The future of Abbé Pierre, a life of struggle ? He doesn’t see it well, except perhaps with “use precaution and decryption”. “It’s certain, it can no longer be seen or broadcast as is” adds producer Wassim Beji. The two men, at the origin of the project, wanted to make a film that felt good and encouraged commitment. “It no longer makes sense,” admits the producer, “but we’re just collateral damage. The most serious thing is the victims and what happened for decades”.
* After reflection on the method, it is Emmaüs International which officially asks the consulting agency Egaé to support them on February 9, 2024.
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