Nanterre (AFP)

The Matzneff affair embarrassingly invites itself into the municipal campaign of Anne Hidalgo in Paris through its Culture Assistant, Christophe Girard, heard on Wednesday as a witness on his links with the writer accused of pedophilia.

Source close to the file, the former mayor of the 4th arrondissement, pillar of the Parisian majority, was heard at the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP) in Nanterre by the police officers in charge of the investigation "for rapes on a minor "under 15 who targets Gabriel Matzneff.

The investigators are particularly interested in the financial support which the writer received in the 1980s from the Maison Yves Saint Laurent, of which Mr. Girard was secretary general between 1986 and 1987.

It was the day after the publication of this testimony, on January 3, that an investigation for "rapes of minors" was opened by the Paris prosecutor's office.

"the French elites too"

Investigators have since carried out several searches, in particular at Gallimard, one of its publishers, at the Parisian home as well as at the Italian hotel where currently resides the man who claimed in his books his attraction for the "under 16s" and for sex tourism with little boys in Asia.

In an article entitled "A pedophile writer on the dock. And the French elites too", the New York Times recalled on February 11 how Mr. Girard had, in 1987, provided financial assistance to Gabriel Matzneff.

The author himself wrote in "The apple of my eyes", his newspaper for the years 1986-1987, that Mr. Girard announced to him that the Maison Yves Saint Laurent would finance, "as long as he wishes", the costs of the hotel in which he lived hidden from view in the Saint-Germain-des-Près district.

Mr. Matzneff, long tolerated or even praised in the Parisian literary world, regularly saw in this hotel Vanessa Springora, then aged 15 years.

Interviewed recently by AFP, Christophe Girard denied any proximity with Mr. Matzneff who dedicated to him "The apple of my eye" and who described him in the 2000s as one of his "closest" friends.

"The person I have lived with for 25 years has never met him," insisted Mr. Girard. "A close friend is someone who goes on vacation with you, who dines with you, with whom you go. Well, that's not the case!".

"We knew nothing" of the facts today alleged against the writer, he further explained.

But at City Hall, we have been following for several weeks with a worried eye a case that the Hidalgo camp would have been spared a few days before the municipal elections (March 15 and 22).

- in fifth position -

"We treated the matter in high places. Christophe Girard spoke with Anne (Hidalgo), Emmanuel Grégoire (campaign director) and Jean-Louis Missika (president of the campaign platform)", confides to the AFP a close friend of the city.

The affair also challenged its running mates in the 18th arrondissement, where Christophe Girard is a candidate in fifth position. During a meeting in this sector two weeks ago, the tone rose. "The young generation did not understand that 30 years ago, I did not denounce. I did pedagogy. I explained ... and you can check, the list has not changed" , Mr. Girard told AFP.

According to a relative of the mayor of Paris, Christophe Girard said during crisis meetings to have "obeyed the orders of Pierre Bergé", companion of Yves Saint Laurent and co-founder of his fashion house, who had asked him to settle the Gabriel Matzneff's hotel. "It doesn't make him an accomplice of pedophilia," said the source.

Pierre Bergé, who died in 2017, "helped a lot of people, known and unknown. My role was to bring the good news to the one who was in shit," said Mr. Girard, AFP who now wonders if Mr. Bergé had not paid Mr. Matzneff's hotel expenses "out of his personal funds".

The difficulty of Christophe Girard's stories is that "he talks about the dead, it is the strength and the fragility" of his explanations, comments an official of the Hôtel de Ville.

For another politician close to Anne Hidalgo, Christophe Girard is "an excellent expiatory victim in this settling of accounts from one generation to another, in this case the 68 generation".

sm-nk-gd-bat / jk / epe / ach

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