Tiktukno: clip summarizing today's events in sports, 10.1 (Sport1)
Noel Le Garte, the president of the French Football Federation, is currently in the midst of a widespread public attack after he publicly insulted Zinedine Zidane.
Kylian Mbappe had time to come out against him, national team coach Didier Deschamps joined in and even France's sports minister intervened - but now the storm around him is taking another turn, following the harsh testimony of an actress' agent who claims he sexually harassed her.
The agent Sonia Swede is considered one of the most powerful agencies in France and represents, among other things, stars on a national scale such as Amandine Henry and Kira Hemeravi, but when La Gert approached her and invited her to a meeting in 2014, she was a young agent at the beginning of her career.
"He called me and told me that he had been following me for a long time, that I was brilliant at my job. He promised to introduce me to Brigitte Henriques (another major actor's agent in France), who was at the time the leading agent in the field. He said that the three of us would meet at his apartment in Paris," she said Yesterday Swede had a difficult interview, with a choked throat.
"He explained that he organizes such meetings regularly, that he is more comfortable holding meetings of this type in his home because it allows confidentiality to be maintained. This is why I agreed. I was 28 at the time, at the beginning of my career in the field, and he was the president of the association. I believed that I should respect him. But in practice, he never looked at me as an agent. He looked at me like a candy he had to taste."
Big mouth, and annoying too.
Le Garte next to Sonia Swed (photo: official website, illustration)
"He never looked at me as an agent."
Sonia Swed (photo: screenshot, from Instagram)
According to Swed, "from the moment he started talking to me rudely, from the moment the vulgar sentences started, I realized that when he looks at me, all he sees are breasts and ass."
Swede told about the meeting with Le Garte, which she came to with complete faith that it would help her advance her career.
"I walk into the apartment, and I see him lying in bed with two glasses of champagne. Brigitte Henriques wasn't there at all, and he said, 'You know what, we don't need her. If we get close enough, I can make your dreams come true. He handed me the the glass, and I refused to take a sip from it because I was afraid he would drug me. Enough similar stories have happened in the past..."
Swede's testimony to French television
continued to haunt for years after that evening.
Le Garte (Photo: Reuters)
Swede managed to escape from Le Garte's apartment that night, but the harassment from him continued.
"He wrote to me in a message, 'Sonia, I'm opening the third bottle. I'm waiting for you with the fourth bottle. I miss you.' A legitimate profession, not even as a human being. For him I was a tit and an ass. It disappointed me very much. For me, he was supposed to be a role model, and that was not the case."
"He wrote to me, 'I'm opening the third bottle. Waiting for you for the fourth.'
Sonia Swed (photo: screenshot, from Instagram)
Swede added: "Noel Le Garte is a doppelganger. He has high self-confidence, and he believes that everything is allowed to him. When he speaks, he leaves you with the impression that he is the prince of football, that the whole industry is his kingdom. But what about the attitude towards the little people he meets On the way? Years after that night, he continued to harass me. For me, it's a terrible and terrible lack of respect. I'm a woman trying to build myself up in a profession that's not easy, a macho and mostly male profession, and things like this only push you away."
sport
Tags
French football
sexual harassment