Paris (AFP)

Gallimard announced on Tuesday the cessation of the marketing of the journal of the writer Gabriel Matzneff, who is the subject of an investigation for rapes of a minor and is implicated in the book of an editor telling his relationship under control him, when she was 14 years old.

"The suffering expressed by Mrs. Vanessa Springora in + Le Consentement +, makes heard a word whose force justifies this exceptional measure", affirms in a press release the publishing house which published the newspaper of Gabriel Matzneff since 1990.

The copies still present in bookstores of Gabriel Matzneff's journal, including the last volume "L'Amante de l'Arsenal" released in November, will be recalled.

This is the first time that Gallimard has taken such a measure, the publishing house told AFP.

The decision was taken while the 83-year-old writer has been targeted since Friday by an investigation for "rape of a minor" under 15, opened 24 hours after the release of the accusing book by Vanessa Springora, director of Editions Julliard.

In "The Consent" (Grasset), this 47-year-old woman tells how she was seduced by Gabriel Matzneff when she was not even 14 years old (and he was almost 50 years old), as well as the wounds left by this story , under control, over its existence.

"At fourteen, you are not supposed to be expected by a 50-year-old man at the end of his college, you are not supposed to live in the hotel with him, nor find yourself in his bed, his rod in mouth at snack time, "she says in this book, which has moved into the top 5 of physical and digital sales in literature on Amazon France.

The writer's taste for "under 16s" and for sex tourism with young boys in Asia, which he has told in numerous books, has long been tolerated in the literary world. It was distinguished in 2013 by the Renaudot essay prize.

But Vanessa Springora's testimony seems to be a game-changer. Even before its release on January 2, "Le Consentement" was talked about in a context of denunciation of sexual violence marked in particular by the recent accusations by actress Adèle Haenel against filmmaker Christophe Ruggia.

© 2020 AFP