“Complément d’investigation” and France Télévisions want to extinguish doubts: the passage from the investigative program in which actor Gérard Depardieu seems to make comments of a sexual nature about a little girl was “authenticated” by a bailiff.
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This announcement from France Télévisions on Friday comes after statements by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday on France 5, suggesting that the sequence could have been modified during editing.
This was previously stated by the family of the actor, who has also been indicted for rape since 2020, after a complaint from an actress, Charlotte Arnould.
“There is no doubt and no ambiguity about the fact that it is indeed the young girl in the image who is targeted by Gérard Depardieu’s comments,” assured the public television group in a press release.
Mandated on Thursday to “authenticate and certify the images and comments concerned”, a “bailiff was able to view the rushes” (the raw images, without editing), indicated France Télévisions.
He “certifies in his observation that it is a single sequence showing Gérard Depardieu watching an equestrian demonstration”.
He also attests “that during the sequence, he was able to note the comments made by Gérard Depardieu and “that with the exception of the young girl, only male-looking riders enter the foreground of the cameras”” .
“Fake news”
“Usually, we do not show our rushes to anyone, not even to the courts, because this is a matter of source secrecy,” declared the presenter of “Complément d’investigation”, Tristan Waleckx, to franceinfo, a French news site. Televisions.
“But in this context of an avalanche of fake news (…), we decided to exceptionally show them to a bailiff to attest to the rigor of our work,” he continued.
These images were shot by writer Yann Moix during the actor’s trip to North Korea in 2018, and broadcast in “Complément d’investigation” on December 7 on France 2.
We see Gérard Depardieu multiplying misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women, and uttering others of a sexual nature when a little girl on horseback appears in the image.
This show sparked intense controversy, with the actor facing accusations of rape and sexual assault, which he denies.
Questioned on Wednesday in the program “C à vous”, Mr. Macron replied: “There are sometimes outbursts over comments made, I am wary of the context (…) I have seen the images, I have also heard that there were controversies over the words which were out of step with the images.
He also said he was a “great admirer” of the actor and said he “hated” “manhunts”, comments which sparked protests from feminist movements.
The week preceding this interview, the Head of State and Gérard Depardieu had spoken on the telephone, according to Mr. Macron’s entourage, confirming information from franceinfo.
Bolloré Universe
In a column published by the Journal du Dimanche (JDD) on December 17, the family of Gérard Depardieu (his children Julie, Roxane and Jean, his niece Delphine and his ex-wife Élisabeth) denounced “cutting plans (.. .) necessarily suspicious since we can mount them as we want.
In an article posted online on Thursday, the JDD once again returned to this matter, considering that the images could have been “manipulated”. This point of view was defended by the newspaper’s director, Geoffroy Lejeune, on the CNews television channel.
These two media are under the control of Vivendi, the group of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, with opinions deemed ultra-conservative.
Another controversy recently pitted “Complément d’investigation” against a figure in the Bolloré universe, the controversial host Cyril Hanouna, star of the C8 channel (also owned by Vivendi).
“Complement d’investigation” devoted a critical investigation to him on November 30, in which he was described as “the new godfather of the PAF”.
For his part, Yann Moix, who claims that the images of Depardieu in North Korea were broadcast without his consent, said he was “99% sure that Gérard made these comments about a rider who was not the little daughter”, Thursday in Le Figaro.