Paris (AFP)
The Paris prosecutor Rémy Heitz announced that a "call to witnesses" would be launched on Tuesday to find "victims" in the framework of the investigation opened for rape of a minor under 15 years old targeting the writer Gabriel Matzneff.
"A call for witnesses will be launched today by the police service that we have commissioned for the investigations", the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence Against Persons (OCRVP), announced Heitz on Europe 1.
The investigation had been opened by the prosecution on January 3 the day after the publication of the autobiographical novel "The Consent" in which the editor Vanessa Springora denounced her relationship under the influence of the writer Gabriel Matzneff when she was a minor, in the years 80.
"Beyond the facts described by Vanessa Springora", the investigation will endeavor "to identify all other possible victims who may have suffered similar offenses on national territory or abroad", had already specified Mr. Heitz in its press release announcing the opening of the investigation.
The editor was heard at the end of January by the investigators but the facts concerning her are prescribed.
In addition to the "manifestation of the truth" and the verification concerning the prescription of the facts, "the approach of the Paris public prosecutor's office" when it comes to minors, is to "ensure" by opening an investigation "that he there are no forgotten victims, "said Heitz on Europe 1.
"If there have been other victims", it is necessary "to allow them to speak, to take their word into account and to prosecute the perpetrator", he added, explaining the reason for be part of the call for witnesses to be launched on Tuesday.
Vanessa Springora was the first to testify among the adolescent girls seduced by Gabriel Matzneff, whose behavior, described in his own books, has long been tolerated in the Parisian literary world. In 2013, he won the Renaudot essay prize.
In an interview broadcast at the end of January, Gabriel Matzneff, 83, said he "regretted" his past pedophile practices in Asia, while claiming that "at the time", "no one ever spoke of crime". In a letter, he said he did not deserve the "awful portrait" published by the editor.
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