On April 25, the Nanterre prosecution requested the referral to the criminal court of Dominique Boutonnat, 52, for sexual assault on his godson, with whom he has no family ties.
Questioned on this point in June, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, considered that "the presumption of innocence prevails" and welcomed Mr. Boutonnat's results.
In October 2020, a complaint was filed by this young man in his twenties, for facts dating from August 2020 during a vacation in Greece.
The indictment took place in February 2021.
During an interview with the newspaper Le Parisien, the Minister of Culture, Rima Abdul Malak, had campaigned in June for his renewal: "He is indicted, not condemned".
She also defended her record: "He is the boss of a CNC which has faced the crisis and which, moreover, has been a pioneer in the fight against sexual and gender-based violence".
No case law requires the withdrawal or resignation of a civil servant under investigation.
But these accusations weigh on this known film producer, in an already tense context after the non-renewal, in the post-legislative reshuffle, of the Minister of Solidarity Damien Abad, targeted by an investigation following a complaint for attempted rape .
In addition, several directors, including Jacques Audiard and Pierre Salvadori, united within the SRF (Society of film directors), have recently criticized the "openly liberal and too often short-termist" policy of the president of the CNC.
The appointment, three years ago, of this donor to Emmanuel Macron's electoral campaign had already gone badly in an environment worried about seeing the imposition of a logic based on profitability, endangering auteur cinema.
© 2022 AFP