Writer Gabriel Matzneff accused of pedophilia by publisher Vanessa Springora - 20 Minutes

Nearly three months after the publication of Vanessa Springora's Consent, another woman claims to have had a teenage relationship with the writer accused of pedophilia Gabriel Matzneff. She emerged from silence Tuesday, interviewing the New York Times .

Francesca Gee, 62, looks back at the three years spent with the writer, when she was 15 and he was 37, then how he unwillingly used his image and his letters in his writings, including his essay defending pedophilia The under-sixteen .

Gabriel Matzneff, in Paris, in 2006. - BALTEL / SIPA

A "cataclysm"

"He has not stopped using me to justify the sexual exploitation of children and adolescents," she wrote in a manuscript refused in particular by Grasset, editor of the Consent . Like Vanessa Springora before her, Francesca Gee first met Gabriel Matzneff in 1973, when she was with her mother, and lived with him three years with the consent of his parents.

From this experience which she describes as a “cataclysm”, in 2004 she drew a manuscript from it, refused by all the publishers contacted. It was the shock caused by the publication and the success of the Consent that led her to break the silence. "She did the job, I don't have to worry about it anymore," she thought first, before changing her mind. "A week or two later, I realized that I was totally part of this story."

A former journalist, she is currently working on a new manuscript after spending years asking for photos of her and her old letters to be removed from Matzneff's books.

An investigation into rape of minors

In the interview, Francesca Gee also evokes the former Minister of Health Michèle Barzach (1986-1988), gynecologist by profession, claiming to have consulted her half a dozen times, always in the company of Gabriel Matzneff, when she was minor, especially to be prescribed the pill.

The publication at the beginning of the year of Vanessa Springora's autobiographical novel provoked an electric shock, highlighting the subject of sexual violence against minors and the complacency which Matzneff benefited from in the literary world. In 2013, he won the Renaudot essay prize.

The 83-year-old writer, who has long claimed his attraction to the “under 16” and sex tourism in Asia, said at the end of January “to regret” his past pedophile practices, while arguing that “at home” era "," no one ever spoke of a crime ". Targeted by an investigation for rape of minors, he took refuge in Italy when the scandal broke out. He is to be tried in September 2021 for “apology” for pedophilia.

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  • New york times
  • Investigation
  • Literature
  • Gabriel Matzneff
  • Pedophilia
  • Culture