While the government launched the first campaign on the subject, two television programs shed harsh light on sexual violence within the family.
Emmanuelle Béart on Sunday on M6, Muriel Robin on October 2 on TF1. The broadcast of these two programs coincides with the launch in mid-September by the government of the first campaign on this subject, and the publication on Thursday September 21 by the Independent Commission on Incest and Sexual Violence Against Children (Ciivise) of an analysis of 27,000 testimonies received over two years.
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Co-directed by Emmanuelle Béart and Anastasia Mikova, A silence so loud will be broadcast on Sunday September 24 at 11:10 p.m. on M6. This documentary collects the words of four victims of incest. Echoing this, Emmanuelle Béart reveals elements of her own story by revealing that she experienced this trauma between the ages of 10 and 14. The 60-year-old actress does not reveal the identity of her attacker, but clarified that it was not Guy Béart, her singer father who died in 2015.
The other witnesses are Norma, raped as a child by her grandfather, Pascale, who hid the abuse inflicted by her father until she was fifty, Sarah, whose ex-partner abused their little daughter, and Joachim, who accuses his parents of incest, which they deny.
“Institutional mistreatment”
According to Emmanuelle Béart, the challenge is to know how “society can and must respond to this speech“. This answer must be “political and societal, I hope that our film will contribute to this“, she launched in a video message during the presentation of the film to the press at the beginning of September. For Sarah, one of the priorities is to improve the functioning of justice. She criticizes him for not having taken enough into account the word of his daughter and his own, and for having delayed in removing the child from the clutches of his father and aggressor.”It’s a double punishment, we are in mistreatment on the part of the attacker and institutional mistreatment.“, she declared, indicating that she had initiated proceedings against the State. “Today, my daughter is 12 years old, she is in the reconstruction phase and I support her with all my love to help her move forward.“, she adds with a smile.
Another witness in the documentary, Norma talks about how to repair yourself after incest in a comedy show, Normal, which will resume on September 27 at the Théâtre du Marais in Paris. “I had two choices: either get caught up in the torpor of what I had experienced, or sublimate it. I sublimated it by making jokes“.”It destroyed our life, that’s undeniable, but we don’t just have that, fortunately: we are also people who like to make love, to have relationships with others; we don’t just cry“, she emphasizes.
“Television plays an essential role”
Eight days later A silence so loudTF1 will broadcast on October 2 at 9:10 p.m. a fiction with a similar title, Eyes closed wide. More than a film about incest, it is a film about the denial of incest. Very convincing, Muriel Robin plays a grandmother torn by a dilemma: should she believe her 6-year-old grandson, who seems to be a victim of incest, or her son and father of the little boy (played by the impressive Guillaume Labbé), who fiercely denies it?
This film “will certainly lead to a discussion within the family. Everyone will be able to question themselves, reflect, become aware. Television plays an essential role here“, declared the actress, quoted in the TF1 press kit. “We are at the dawn of the beginning of an awakening of consciousness. Because if the figures of the reality of this situation exist, the silence remains“, she lamented.
A movement to free speech on incest began after the publication of the book The big family by Camille Kouchner at the beginning of 2021. In the literary return of this month of September 2023, another book, Sad Tiger (POL editions) by Neige Sinno, approaches incest through a true literary quest. Awarded by the literary prize of World, the book is in the first selection of almost all the autumn prizes, including the Goncourt Prize and the Médicis Prize.
According to Ciivise, 160,000 children are victims of sexual violence each year in France and 5.5 million adults were victims of sexual violence as children, most often within their families. Emmanuel Béart and Camille Kouchner co-signed with around sixty personalities a column published on September 7 in The world, demanding from Emmanuel Macron the maintenance of the Ciivise, supposed to disappear on December 31, 2023.