Refugee in Italy since the affair broke out, Gabriel Matzneff comes out of silence. The writer claims to "regret" his past pedophile practices in Asia, while arguing that "at the time, [...] no one ever spoke of crime", in an interview with BFMTV, where he is filmed from behind, aired this Wednesday.
Under investigation for rape of a minor under 15 years old, after the publication of the editor Vanessa Springora's book The Consent , where she describes her relationship under the influence of the writer in the 80s, started when she was 13 years old, Gabriel Matzneff declared that he did not “want to read” Vanessa Springora's book. "I will never say anything against her because she is a bright person," he says.
"I feel socially destroyed"
On the other hand, he denounces the decision of the Minister of Culture Franck Riester to request the suspension of the annual public allowance which he has received since 2002. “In a few weeks, I feel socially destroyed. (...) The state drives the point home to drive my head into the water, he says. That I kill myself, that I kill myself, that's the trap! It really is the Soviet Union! Come on, Matzneff, to the gulag. I don't know how I'm doing. "
"We were talking about the hijacking of a minor"
“A tourist, a foreigner, should not behave like that. We must, adult, turn our heads, resist temptation. Naturally, I regret, just as if I do something that is not right, I regret it, ”he says again. "At the time," he argues, however, "there was talk of embezzlement of minors, incitement of the minor to debauchery, indecent assault ... But no one ever spoke of a crime."
And to add: “It was over 40 years ago! (…) You were there as a traveler and you had young boys and girls who flirted with you and jumped on you, under the benevolent eye of the police. "
The claimed attraction of Gabriel Matzneff, now 83 years old, for those "under 16" and for sex tourism with young boys in Asia, which he has told in books, has long been tolerated in the Parisian literary world.
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