French Feminist Groups Take To Streets To Protest President Macron’s Defense Of Gérard Depardieu

A collective of feminist groups held street protests across France on Thursday evening to protest President Emmanuel Macron’s support of Gérard Depardieu in the light of multiple allegations of sexual assault against the actor.

The initiative – entitled “Keep your old world, we want one without sexist and sexual violence” – was centred in Paris but also saw smaller satellite protests in cities such as Toulouse, Marseille and Lyon.

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“We call on all those who defend the rights of women, children and gender minorities, and who refuse sexist and sexual violence to rallies,” the group, gathering under the banner of the Feminist Strike Collective, announced in a statement prior to the protests.

“Since #MeToo, progress has been made. Let us not allow this progress to be destroyed by irresponsible, troubling and sexist remarks by the President of the Republic which have undermined the rights of victims and the rights of all women and children,” it continued.

Some 400 people gathered in Paris’s Place Saint-Augustin brandishing placards bearing slogans such as “Patriarchy, You’re Stuffed”, “The Omertà Is Finished” and “Let’s Break The Old World”.

The street protests come three weeks after Macron publicly defended Depardieu who has seen his star fall following the broadcast of a bombshell documentary delving into multiple allegations of sexually inappropriate behavior against him.

In an interview with evening talk show C à Vous in mid-December, Macron suggested Depardieu was the subject of a witch hunt, adding he was a “great admirer” of the actor who “had made France proud.”

The collective behind the protests featured a variety of female and human rights bodies including the Feminist Collective Against Rape (CFCV); the Fédération Nationale Solidarité Femmes (FNSF), the Human Rights League; Osez le féminisme (Dare To Be Feminist) and the Femen activist group.

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