YouTubers caught up in the #MeToo wave?
Norman Thavaud, French YouTube star with 12 million subscribers, was taken into police custody on Monday December 5 in Paris for questioning after being targeted by charges of rape and corruption of minors, involving several teenagers and young people. women.
"Some are fans of the Web star, and accuse him of facts of a different nature", according to information from
Liberation
.
The Paris prosecutor's office clarified daily that the procedure, opened in January 2022 by the Brigade for the Protection of Minors (BPM), concerned "six complainants".
Five of them would accuse Norman of rape, two were minors at the time of the facts.
The Webedia group (AlloCiné, PurePeople, 750g, Jeuxvideo.com...) immediately reacted to the news, announcing on Twitter "the suspension of its collaboration" with Normand Thavaud.
In video, the trailer for
She Said
, the investigation that brought down Harvey Weinstein
Already quoted in #BalanceTonYoutubeur
In August 2018, the name of Norman Thavaud – at this stage presumed innocent – had been cited in the wave #BalanceTonYoutubeur following a tweet from Lucas Hauchard, alias Squeezie.
The number 1 of the French "YouTube game" (17.6 million subscribers to date) had at the time thrown a stone into the pond by denouncing the inappropriate behavior of certain videographers who "take advantage of the psychological vulnerability of young subscribers to get sex.
On July 8, 2020, a new twist.
Maggie Desmarais, a Quebec fan, had publicly accused Norman of having manipulated her to obtain sexual photos and videos in 2018. She said she was 16 at the time of the events.
After filing a complaint in the summer of 2020, she testified openly and on video on the Quebec media site
Urbania
.
She then evoked a “little unhealthy game of emotional attachment”.
"I was young, I admired him, I fell easily into the trap," she confided, assuring that around thirty young women who had had a similar experience with the French YouTuber had contacted her.
Questioned by AFP, Maggie Desmarais confirmed that she was currently in France to be confronted with Norman before the investigators.
Dirty Biology under investigation for rape
Another figure from French YouTube, Léo Grasset (alias Dirty Biology) recently hit the headlines.
Known on the platform for being one of the specialists in popular science, he is the target of two preliminary investigations opened in 2022 in Paris and Lyon, concerning accusations of rape and sexual harassment.
Read alsoInfluencer Léo Grasset targeted by an investigation for rape in Paris
The content creator responded to the accusations relayed by
Mediapart
in a video posted on his channel in mid-November, where he said: "I have a sometimes messy love life, and sometimes I also make big redneck jokes. but nevertheless the article draws up a portrait of me which is dishonest;
he builds a toxic character with insinuations and truncated quotes”.
The 33-year-old videographer notably denies having raped a young woman in 2016. The case is, for the time being, in the hands of justice.