Filmmaker Maïwenn was fined €400 on Tuesday by the Paris police court for pulling Mediapart co-founder Edwy Plenel's hair in a Paris restaurant last February.
The actress and director will also have to pay a symbolic euro to the journalist and 1500 euros to Mediapart in damages, as well as 500 euros in legal costs to Edwy Plenel and Mediapart.
"I don't apologize and I don't regret anything"
Maïwenn Le Besco, who was present at the hearing, admitted to pulling the journalist's hair during a dinner in a Paris restaurant. "I don't apologize and I don't regret anything," she said in a bravado tone.
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I reacted violently because this newspaper [Mediapart, editor's note] betrayed my consent
»Maïwenn Le Besco
She explained that her "behaviour" towards Edwy Plenel "was not commensurate with the upheaval in her life" caused by a Mediapart article about her ex-husband and father of her daughter, filmmaker Luc Besson. "I reacted violently because this newspaper [Mediapart, editor's note] betrayed my consent," she said. "It's a tsunami in a woman's life to see her private life in the media," she added.
Maïwenn Le Besco deplored the publication by Mediapart of her hearing made in June 2020 before the judicial police in the Luc Besson case, for which the father of her daughter is accused, wrongly according to him, of rape by the actress Sand Van Roy.
'Moral rape'
The publication was "a moral rape," Maïwenn said. "Parts of my statement to the police were taken only against the father of my child." "Mediapart knew very well that I didn't want to comment on this subject," she said. "I'm the victim," she said.
Edwy Plenel told the court that he had experienced the attack with "astonishment". "A person I didn't know from Eve or Adam pulled my hair and spat in my face," he said.
Read also"Surprised" by the allegations against Luc Besson, Maïwenn does not "spare" him
It was "the first time in my professional career that I was physically assaulted in a public place," he said. "It's an assault on the job I do," he said.
Considering that the "acts of violence" alleged against the filmmaker were "characterized", the public prosecutor had called for a "severe sentence" and requested a fine of 700 euros.