According to a source close to the file, the police of the Central Office for the People’s Repression of People have questioned it “on the various elements collected by the investigation, in particular his writings”.
Le Monde with AFP
The writer Gabriel Matzneff, targeted by a minor rape investigation following revelations from the editor Vanessa Springora, at the beginning of 2020, was heard Wednesday August 31 in free hearing by police officers, according to several sources close to the file. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed this information to the world.
Police of the Central Office for the Repression of Violence to People (OCRVP), established in Nanterre, questioned it “on the various elements collected by the investigation, in particular his writings”, according to a source close to the file . His lawyer, M e Emmanuel Pierrat, was not reachable in the immediate future to comment on this information.
Twenty-four hours after the release of the book Le Consent, by Vanessa Springora, at the beginning of 2020, in which the editor challenged the writer, now 86, the Paris prosecutor’s office had opened A survey for rapes on minors under the age of 15.
In her book, Vanessa Springora told how she had been seduced by Gabriel Matzneff when she was not yet 14 years old and her almost 50 years old, as well as the weight of this story on her life, punctuated by depressions .
She was the first to publicly testify among the teenage girls seduced by Gabriel Matzneff, a long celebrated author by the French literary environment and awarded by the Renaudot Essay Prize in 2013.
to a classification without follow -up
The author, who has long benefited from a tolerance of part of the intelligentsia and the media in France, himself claimed as “pedophile”, telling at length, in many works, his Relations with minors and its taste for sex tourism in Asia with young boys. Since then, he said he “regrets” his pedophile practices in Asia, while arguing that “at the time”, “never no one spoke of crime”.
In September 2021, another woman, the former British journalist of Italian origin Francesca Gee, had in turn accused the writer. In the deadliest, autopubliated weapon, she said she had a relationship with Gabriel Matzneff when she was 15 years old, in the 1970s, and denounced the mess that he represented, the judicial inquiry targeting this man.
We seem to orient ourselves, due to prescription, towards a classification without follow -up. A source close to the survey recently said that “the objective was to close the file before the end of the year [2022]”. According to this same source, “the necessities of international cooperation”, but also the analysis of the prolific writings of Mr. Matzneff and a hard drive, have made the investigations last longer than expected.
Gabriel Matzneff, who had retired to Italy after the accusations of Vanessa Springora, says he is the victim of a revenge of the latter and Francesca Gee because of painful separations.