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CNC director Dominique Boutonnat
Photo: XAVIER LEOTY / AFP
The chairman of the French film fund Center national du cinéma français (CNC), Dominique Boutonnat, is suspected of sexual assault.
The police took the 51-year-old into custody on Wednesday, as confirmed by the public prosecutor in the Paris suburb of Nanterre.
His 22-year-old sponsored child had filed charges against him for attempted rape.
According to the television broadcaster BFM-TV, Boutonnat denies the allegations.
The film and television producer has been at the helm of the funding fund since July 2019.
The state authority is subordinate to the Ministry of Culture.
In October 2020, under Boutonnat's leadership, the CNC announced the formation of a working group dedicated to the fight against sexual abuse in the industry.
Before his appointment at CNC, Dominique Boutonnat worked as a film producer, among other things, he was involved in the financing of the successful films "Pretty Best Friends" and "Poliezei".
During the 2017 presidential campaign, Boutonnat made a donation for then-candidate and current President Emmanuel Macron.
In France, a number of similar allegations have been raised against men from the film industry and academia since the beginning of the year.
The trigger was a book in which the lawyer Camille Kouchner accuses her stepfather, the well-known political scientist Olivier Duhamel, of having abused her twin brother as a teenager.
The French government is seeking to change the law in this regard.
The sexual penetration of under 15-year-olds by an adult should in principle be made a criminal offense, as Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti announced on the channel France 2.
Unlike in Germany and other EU countries, there is no legal age of consent for sex with minors in France.
After controversial acquittals of adults after allegedly "consensual sex" with children, President Macron had already announced a change in the law in 2018.
In Germany, the age of consent is 14 years.
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feb / AFP
