(Toulouse) The French Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul-Malak, ruled on Friday that the words and attitude of Gérard Depardieu during the actor’s trip to North Korea in 2018, recently revealed in a program, were “shameful to France”.
Traveling to Moissac with government spokesperson Olivier Véran, Mme Abdul-Malak denounced “the absolutely shocking comments that we saw in this report, an attitude which is intended to be a joke and provocation, but which is in fact quite disrespectful and undignified, and which shames to France.”
These previously unpublished images of the actor’s trip, revealed in an investigative program on public television, show Gérard Depardieu making inappropriate comments, and making gestures and throat noises mimicking the sexual act during exchanges with women .
In a stud farm, he says that “women love to ride horses (because) their clits rub against the saddle […] they enjoy enormously.” And to continue: “They’re big sluts. »
“It disgusted me,” added the minister on Friday, who nevertheless recalled that “it is not up to the Ministry of Culture to give instructions, since there is total freedom of creation in France.”
“There are directors who can decide to play him in future films or not. I don’t have the impression that there are many proposals, at the moment, arriving on his desk,” she further noted.
PHOTO ANNE-CHRISTINE POUJOULAT, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE ARCHIVES
Gérard Depardieu
Already charged with rape, the French actor has been targeted since mid-September by another complaint from an actress who accuses him of having sexually assaulted her during filming in 2007, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Gérard Depardieu denies these accusations.
A national icon in the same way as Alain Delon or Brigitte Bardot, known throughout the world, Gérard Depardieu is an extraordinary actor whose career has been punctuated by excesses and scandals. He has more than 200 films in cinema and television to his credit.