A “disciplinary procedure” will be initiated by the Grand Chancellery of the Legion of Honor against Gérard Depardieu, the target of two complaints for rape and sexual assault, announced Friday, December 15, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak .
“A Legion of Honor distinguishes a man, an artist, an attitude, values. It turns out that I spoke with the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, General Lecointre: a council of the order of the Legion of Honor will meet and will initiate a disciplinary procedure to decide whether this Legion of honor must be suspended or not, withdrawn completely or not. It will be up to them to decide,” said Ms. Abdul Malak on France 5.
Earlier in the day, the Minister of Culture denounced the comments and attitude of Gérard Depardieu during the actor’s trip to North Korea in 2018, recently made public by the program “Complément d’investigation “.
Traveling to Moissac (Tarn-et-Garonne) with the government spokesperson, Olivier Véran, Ms. Abdul Malak denounced “the absolutely shocking comments that we saw in this report, an attitude which is intended to be in tone joke and provocation, but which is in fact quite disrespectful and undignified, and which shames France”.
Freedom of creation
The previously unpublished images of the actor’s trip, revealed in the program “Complément d’investigation”, show Gérard Depardieu making inappropriate comments, and making gestures and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 states that “women love to ride [because] their clits rub against the saddle (…) they enjoy a lot”. And continued: “They’re big bitches. »
“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 whether to cast 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.
Already indicted for rape, the French actor, with more than two hundred films to his credit, has been the target since mid-September of another complaint from an actress who accuses him of having sexually assaulted her during a shooting in 2007, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office. Gérard Depardieu denies these accusations.