Paris (AFP)
The Minister of Culture Franck Riester gave his support on Saturday to "all the victims" of the writer Gabriel Matzneff, at the heart of a controversy for his sexual attraction for young adolescents.
"The literary aura is not a guarantee of impunity. I give my full support to all the victims who have the courage to break the silence," wrote the minister on his Twitter account before the publication in early January of "Consent." ", testimony of the editor Vanessa Springora, seduced at 14 by Matzneff.
"I invite them, as well as any witness to violence committed against children, to contact 119," continues Mr. Riester.
The Minister also asked the National Book Center (CNL) to provide him with "all the details" concerning an allowance paid to certain writers to compensate for financial difficulties related to old age or illness, of which Gabriel Matzneff is the beneficiary.
"I will take my responsibilities," added the minister.
Gabriel Matzneff's now proclaimed 83-year-old taste for young girls and boys has never made the publishing world blink, but the January 2 release of "Consent" changed the game .
The book comes out in a context of denunciation of sexual violence in France, after a new accusation of rape targeting the Franco-Polish director Roman Polanski and those of sexual assault and harassment by actress Adèle Haenel against filmmaker Christophe Ruggia.
Vanessa Springora tells in her book how she was seduced by the almost fifties in the mid-1980s and the weight of this story on her life, punctuated by depressions.
Solicited via his editor, Gabriel Matzneff did not wish to respond to AFP about the "Consent". In a message to the Obs, he expressed his "sadness" about a "hostile, mean, disparaging work".
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