Matzneff case: Vanessa Springora heard by investigators

This is an important step in the investigation opened on January 3 by the Paris prosecutor's office into the alleged actions of the writer Gabriel Matzneff. According to concordant sources, the author Vanessa Springora has been heard since Wednesday morning by the police from the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP).

In "Le Consentement", the 47-year-old publisher describes her relationship with the writer, an assumed amateur of adolescent girls, when she was only 13 years old, an age below sexual majority. She expresses the hold that Matzneff had on her because of her status as a Parisian literary figure.

After dissecting the work, the Paris public prosecutor's office had decided to open a preliminary investigation "on the charges of rape committed on the person of a minor aged 15 to the prejudice, in particular, of Vanessa Springora". If they appear to be prescribed at first glance, this hearing should allow the investigators of the CPVO to know precisely the facts allegedly suffered by Vanessa Springora.

The police are also trying to find the other alleged victims of Gabriel Matzneff, who has never made a secret of the many sexual relationships he has had with adolescents aged 15 and under, boys and girls, since the late 1970s. Relations evoked in the numerous works of the writer.

Original manuscripts recovered by the police

This is also why the OCRVP police took over, on Wednesday 8 January, the very beautiful mansion of the Gallimard publishing house, in the 7th arrondissement of Paris. If they recovered all the books published by Gabriel Matzneff there, the investigators also seized the originals sent by the writer. They should analyze these in order to know if Gabriel Matzneff's writings have not been redacted before publication. The police also left the prestigious publishing house with manuscripts sent to Gallimard by Gabriel Matzneff, but which were never published. Again, their goal is to verify that the writer has not written down more recent facts or that would not be prescribed.

In an interview broadcast this Wednesday morning by the BFM channel, Gabriel Matzneff returned to the accusations of which he has been the target since the end of December. If he said he regretted his pedophile practices in Asia, saying that a “tourist, a foreigner should not behave like that” and should “resist temptation”, he refuted the term “crime”, despite his relationships with children. "At the time, we were talking about hijacking of minors, incitement of the minor to debauchery, indecent assault ... But nobody ever spoke of crime", he assured in this interview carried out in Italy , where he has lived since the affair broke out.