Mis en cause, Alain Delon responds to the controversy. While the Cannes Film Festival, which opened on Tuesday, is due to hand over the honor to the 83-year-old actor, an online petition signed by more than 20,000 people opposes this award to a comedian judged " racist, homophobic, and misogynist ". "You can not challenge my career," says the star.
Launched on the Care2 network by the American organization "Women and Hollywood", the text recalls the controversial remarks of the interpreter of Tancrède in Visconti's Le Chepard , especially on women and on the rights of LGBT + people. In an interview with Figaro Magazine in 2013, Alain Delon confided his opposition to the adoption by homosexual couples. "I live very badly this time which trivializes what is unnatural," he added. In 2018, in the broadcast of France 2 Tea or coffee , he assumed to have already hit a woman. "A slap is macho? Yes, I had to be macho," he said.
"A child needs a mother and a dad"
Questioned in the columns of Figaro, Alain Delon shares his surprise about the controversy. "I do not understand what this thing is, I have the impression that its author seeks above all to develop," he says. And to return to his comments on the adoption by homosexual couples. "I mostly said that I did not care that gays get married, but that there was one thing I did not want, was that they adopt, because a child in my opinion needs a mother and a dad ".
"What do you want me to say, you love me or you do not love me, but you can not challenge my career," concludes Alain Delon.
The Cannes Film Festival defends its choice
Faced with controversy, the organization of the Cannes Film Festival defended its choice. "Alain Delon has the right to think what he thinks," reacted Monday his delegate general Thierry Fremaux, saying "complicated to judge with glasses today things that happened and say a few years ago ".