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00:00 And with us is journalist Annette Levivière, the author of Chronicles of a Shockwave,
00:07 how #MeToo shook up the planet, also the documentary #MeToo shakes France.
00:13 Thanks for being with us here on France 24.
00:16 #MeToo, which is now more than 10 years old, why are these accusations coming up a decade later?
00:27 Well it has been going on since 2017, with the first #MeToo in America.
00:39 And slowly it hit France and other countries, it spread around, #MeToo, it shocked the world.
00:47 And in France it took a long time because this milieu of the French cinema is very intellectual, very artistic, with a lot of respect for the creativity of the director.
01:03 But there were accusations almost from the get-go back in 2017 against certain French personalities.
01:09 It was not taken seriously. You had the big affair of Roman Polanski in Los Angeles, but that was a long time ago.
01:19 It was not hitting really the whole system, you know.
01:25 And this system of abuse of young French actresses has been going on forever.
01:36 Yeah, it seems to have come throughout the public figures, it's come in drips and drabs.
01:41 And now you have Juliete Godrej, who is now 51 years old, recounting in graphic details, we saw in that report, what Benoit Jaco did to her when she was 14 years old.
01:56 She was very young. She looked young, because when you look at pictures of her when she was 14, she looks really like a little girl.
02:04 She's not a grown-up woman, absolutely not.
02:08 But the question is always the same, why did it take so long to speak out, to tell the truth?
02:16 Because it's a trauma. You know, remember what happened after the Shoah, the Holocaust?
02:21 Survivors didn't speak, couldn't talk about what happened.
02:26 It's like, you know, PTSD, post-trauma syndrome.
02:32 It takes time to be able to talk, and usually victims rather try to forget, to try to leave it behind and move on.
02:44 And in her case, that was the case.
02:46 So what's your religion when it comes to statute of limitation?
02:48 Because if it takes you a long time to come to grips to it and to come forward, in this case it's more than...
02:55 It's too late. It's too late.
02:56 So should those statute of limitations be changed?
02:59 It's over, I mean, it's 20 years. The statute of limitation is 20 years, so it's past.
03:08 Several women have now come forward just in the past days, after Juliette Godrej did, to launch accusations against Benoit Jaco.
03:20 In Le Monde, they talked about this system, this predatory system, under the cover of the Cinema World,
03:32 describing also in detail things like the fact that at the time, the second director, who she accuses, Jacques Doyon,
03:42 was still married to the late actress Jane Birkin.
03:46 Yes, husband of Jane Birkin.
03:50 And Jane Birkin had to endure all of this.
03:52 I mean, as you say, this graphic, I mean, what she describes, as you did, Godrej, is really awful.
04:03 So you saw the headline of that article, it talks about a system.
04:09 Yes, it's a system.
04:10 It's not about the two directors, it's about the system.
04:13 Explain this why.
04:14 We talked about Luc Besson, like Natalie Portman accused Luc Besson of trying to come on to her and try to seduce her and so on,
04:27 and she ran away.
04:28 I mean, this has been told for the last 10 years, more often now, you know, by people like Natalie Portman and Luc Besson.
04:36 But all these men got away with it, you know.
04:41 It never, never went to court to start with, you know, because it was too late, it was 20 years ago, and so it didn't go to court.
04:53 So now, for the first time, Godrej, in the first place, didn't give the name of Jacques Doyon, she said some director.
05:03 And then she was so furious when she heard the way he talked about this court affair, a love affair, and for her it was rape and torture.
05:13 It's rape and torture in his case, you know.
05:16 He was beating her up, you know, slapping her face, very violent.
05:25 And he did the same thing with the other women.
05:28 He had sex with young women, young actresses, you know, the next ones, same pattern.
05:34 So the guy is nuts, I mean, he's crazy.
05:37 But at the same time, it's a system.
05:38 Restricting their food as well?
05:40 Food, control.
05:41 Why would you restrict their food?
05:42 Abuse, all kinds of abuse, S&M, I mean, really, you know, with wrapping her.
05:51 I mean, it's really ugly.
05:53 But it's a system, because on the set, let's be honest.
05:57 I mean, when you shoot a movie, everybody knows what goes on, you know.
06:01 I mean, it's a small set, it's a small place, as you know.
06:05 Everybody is staying at the same hotels.
06:07 When you shoot a film, I mean, it's very promiscuous.
06:11 And everybody knows.
06:13 And it's like in the case of Harvey Weinstein, nobody talked for many, many years.
06:19 Nobody see the world, not even the women working there.
06:22 And there are directors who have the reputation of being tyrannical.
06:26 Why?
06:27 They're supposed to be, they're called the artists, you know.
06:31 And the artist is the king on the set.
06:34 He's a dictator, as you said, he's the king.
06:38 And nobody dares say anything.
06:42 And it's a silence.
06:44 So what's going to change?
06:45 Because we asked-- in 2017, we said, oh, it's all going to change now.
06:49 Did it change?
06:50 It will change.
06:51 How?
06:52 Because they are scared.
06:54 Fear.
06:56 As somebody said, fear is now in the other camp.
07:00 Fear-- I mean, all these guys had nothing to be scared of because nothing happened to them.
07:06 Never.
07:07 Now they're going to be scared.
07:08 They won't try to sleep with a 15-year-old actress.
07:13 They won't do it because they are scared.
07:15 Not because they don't want to do it.
07:17 Not because they think it's bad, but because they are scared.
07:20 What it is is an abuse of power.
07:22 A director, as you say, is somebody who on a film set has power.
07:26 Yes.
07:27 Right?
07:28 And especially--
07:29 But you know the key word is a whole Me Too phenomenon is the word power.
07:35 As long as these men, not only directors, but bosses and so on, as long as they have power,
07:43 it will happen because they're going to use and abuse of this power to have sex.
07:50 And two key words, power and consent.
07:55 Consent now is new.
07:57 I mean, nobody talked about it.
07:59 Even in the women's liberation movement, I was part of, consent was not a key word.
08:05 We said, you know, consent now in the relationship between men and women,
08:09 especially when power is involved, the word consent.
08:12 And that's new.
08:14 Has the definition of what's okay and what's not okay changed since you were young?
08:21 Consent.
08:22 I mean, if you want to have sex with a very old director, do it.
08:28 But as long as you really want to do it, as he said, he did good, right?
08:33 She was never attracted to this old man.
08:37 And she never wanted to have sex with him.
08:41 Never.
08:42 We talk about it being an issue of abusive power.
08:45 Well, the most powerful man in France is the president.
08:48 Recently, after a documentary, I had lewd comments by the actor Gérard Depardieu.
08:53 Emmanuel Macron defended him.
08:56 He talked about the fact that there shouldn't be a manhunt, a witch hunt.
09:03 A witch hunt.
09:04 And that you're innocent until proven guilty.
09:07 And Jacob, Benoit Jacob, is saying today for his defense, you know,
09:12 it's again the old Puritanism, you know, the American Puritanism hitting France.
09:20 And when I published his book, I had the same reaction.
09:23 You know, it's coming from America.
09:26 France is the country of freedom, sex, romanticism, and we hate the quote "American Puritanism."
09:35 He is saying that today, as his defense, that total nonsense has nothing to do with freedom.
09:41 But why is Emmanuel Macron defending Gérard Depardieu in this case?
09:46 It's a good question.
09:49 Why?
09:50 Because he really thinks that Depardieu is an asset for France.
09:57 He said the pride of France, that is a quote of Emmanuel Macron.
10:04 Fierté de la France.
10:07 It's not surfing the wave of an anti-woke backlash, as some critics have said.
10:11 Yes, he has.
10:12 His background, he says we don't want to have the woke phenomena like in America.
10:18 We don't want cancel culture.
10:20 We don't want to have witch hunting.
10:23 But it has nothing to do with witch hunting.
10:25 It has to do with equality, consent, and not using your power for abusing women.
10:36 And why is it going to change?
10:38 Because there are more women in power.
10:41 The power, little by little, is becoming more equality, equalitarian.
10:47 So it's going to move.
10:49 And once again, I think now in France, after all these years, it's going to change.
10:54 I don't think you will have something as awful as Judith Gautrec once saw.
11:02 Annette Lévy-Vidal, your book again is called Chronicles of a Shockwave, Me Too Shakes Up the Planet.
11:09 Thank you for being with us.
11:11 Thank you for... Oh, there we go.
11:12 It didn't show the book high enough on the screen.
11:14 Thank you so much for joining us here on France 24.
11:17 Thank you very much.
11:18 Stay with us.
11:19 There's much more to come.
11:20 More news, plus today's business and sports.
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