“Never suffer. Never forget. Never be silent
,” declares actor Francis Renaud in a publication on the social network X (formerly Twitter).
With the recent hashtag #MeTooGarçons, the words of certain men are being released in the world of cinema and certain actors are denouncing acts of sexual violence.
Thursday February 22, the 56-year-old actor, who participated in several Olivier Marchal films, published on X, a photo of a complaint filed against the French director André Téchiné and the casting director Gérard Moulévrier .
Three offenses are mentioned against the filmmakers:
“Sexual harassment”, “death threat”, “sexual assault”.
According to the book,
La Rage au coeur
, published by Francis Renaud in 2018, André Téchiné would not be directly targeted by the qualification of
“sexual assault”.
In his autobiographical work, the actor rather referred to a
“super casting director”.
The latter allegedly “
grabbed his penis gently through (his) pants
” after telling him that “
to succeed, you have to have sex”
.
In 2018, in the show
C'est que de la télé
, presented by Valérie Bénaïm, the actor explained that he had not been authorized by his publishing house to reveal the name of this
“super casting director”
, before revealing his initials:
“GM”.
The alleged events took place between 1988 and 2004.
In response to the accusations in
Le Parisien
, André Téchiné evokes an
“awkward”
approach during a lunch with the actor.
“
I am obviously sorry that (Francis Renaud) was embarrassed by my sentimental, clumsy verbal approach during this lunch
,” declared the 80-year-old director through his lawyer, Me Julia Minkowski, who also defends Nicolas Bedos.
“I was of course wrong, at the time, in not being able to perceive that our relationship was not on an equal footing in his eyes because of my status as director.
On the other hand, I can only express my incomprehension today regarding this filing of a criminal complaint
,” continues the filmmaker, Catherine Deneuve’s traveling companion.
Le Parisien
also reports that in this book Francis Renaud explained that André Téchiné had one day taken his hand during a lunch and said:
“You disturb me a lot, Francis.
You should go further!”
For his part, casting director Gérard Moulévrier also denies, through his lawyer, the accusations against him.
“My client was surprised to discover the statements of Mr. Francis Renaud in a book, incriminating against the profession
,” explains his lawyer, Me Céline Bekerman (…).
He is stunned by such a story which in no way reflects the reality of the events.
Finally, he does not have the power to blacklist an actor and on the contrary encouraged Mr. Renaud in his career.
On his X account, Francis Renaud is very active in denouncing sexual violence in cinema.
Several times a day, the actor points the finger at certain directors, casting directors or producers with #MeTooGarçons.