The passage from the program “Complément d’investigation” in which actor Gérard Depardieu appears to make sexualized remarks about a little girl was “authenticated” by a bailiff, France Télévisions announced in a press release, Friday, December 22.
This reaction comes after statements by President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday on France 5, suggesting that the sequence could have been modified during editing, as the actor’s family also claimed. The latter 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, according to which “the report of Additional investigation on Gérard Depardieu was carried out with the greatest respect for ethical rules.”
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”” .
Macron: “I am wary of the context”
These images were shot by writer Yann Moix during the actor’s trip to North Korea in 2018, and broadcast in the France 2 investigative magazine “Complément d’investigation” on December 7. 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 triggered an intense controversy, after the actor was accused of rape and sexual assault, which he denies. Asked on Wednesday about the actor in the show “C à vous”, Mr. Macron replied: “There are sometimes outbursts over comments made, I am wary of the context (…). I saw the images, I also heard that there were controversies over the words which were out of step with the images.”
In a press release, the Society of Journalists (SDJ) of France Télévisions “expressed its indignation following the comments made by [the President of the Republic]”. “By relaying the hypothesis of a “discrepancy between words and images” on part of the report, Emmanuel Macron shares fake news and legitimizes attempts to destabilize the show. It also discredits the work of journalists by calling into question their professionalism. » The SDJ also underlines that the President of the Republic, who spoke of the absence of “possibility of defending himself” for Gérard Depardieu, “has not seen the program which he allows himself to criticize”, because the actor “was contacted several times during the report so that he could speak, which he refused.”