Los Angeles Times - 24.02.2020

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Until

3/15/

chological devastation and

of having no understanding

that she was a victim until

she was an adult.

That Matzneff wrote

about their relationship in

his books, long after it had

ended, served as a recurring

reminder of what Springora

came to see for what it was:

abuse.

“As if his passing through

my life hadn’t been devastat-

ing enough,” Springora

writes, “he had to continue

documenting, falsifying, re-

cording and forever engrav-

ing his misdeeds.”

The statute of limitations

has run out for Matzneff to

be charged with sexually

abusing Springora. But the

Paris public prosecutor has

opened an investigation into

his sexual past and asked for

potential victims and wit-

nesses to come forward. In a

separate case, brought by a

victims network organiza-

tion, a Paris court has set a

trial date in September on

allegations that Matzneff ’s

work is an “apology for pedo-

philia.”

The 83-year-old Matzneff

could not be reached for

comment. A French TV com-

pany recently tracked him

down on the Italian coast.

He described his relation-

ship with the underage

Springora as a love affair. “I

don’t want to read her book,”

he told BFMTV. “We were

happy together. I have mar-

velous memories. We lived a

lasting and marvelous love

story.”

“When you publish some-

thing it is a public confes-

sion,” he said. “That’s what

writers do, that’s why writ-

ers are the first to be shot be-

cause they leave written

traces. They write, they con-

fess their sins. At that time

nobody thought of the law.

We did things that weren’t

allowed ... nobody spoke of a

crime at that time.”

The story has reverber-

ated beyond legal circles to

the heart of France’s intel-

lectual class. Springora

heads a prestigious publish-

ing house and travels in

many of the same circles as

Matzneff.

“The French justice sys-

tem has prostrated itself be-

fore a writer,” said Mehana

Mouhou, a lawyer involved in

the suit against the author.

“Matzneff never hid what he

did. He recounted the rela-

tions he had with young chil-

dren whose lives have been

shattered and scarred. Min-

isters, people in the world of

culture, politics, the media,

let it go and and now we have

to ask why they let it go and

seek accomplices. Matzneff

is just the tip of an iceberg.”

The essence of Matzn-

eff ’s defense is that his sexu-

al relations with children

happened in a liberal, lais-

sez-faire era before the #Me-

Too movement and other so-

cietal shifts that have

changed sexual attitudes.

He references a moment

when famous writers includ-

ing Michel Foucault, Jean-

Paul Sartre and Simone de

Beauvoir and respected

newspapers, notably Liber-

ation and Le Monde, de-

fended the idea that sex with

minors was a form of libera-

tion for both parties.

“There were all these ar-

guments [in the ’70s and

’80s] that the child was a per-

son in their own right, that

they were fully formed at age

6 and that the family was a

prison from which the child

had to be liberated,” said

Pierre Verdrager, a French

sociologist and expert in

the history of pedophilia.

“These people argued that

sexual relations with an

adult were a form of emanci-

pation, and that parents

who complained that their

child had been abused were

only interested in getting

money in damages.”

Matzneff benefited from

the cover of the culture’s lib-

ertine sentiments. During a

1970s TV show, he was ques-

tioned about his desire for

schoolgirls by the Canadian

writer Denise Bombardier,

who said his actions dis-

gusted her. The next day the

French writer Jacques Lanz-

mann suggested someone

should have slapped Bom-

bardier for her rudeness.

France had no age of

“consent” until 2018. Since

World War II, the age where

sexual relations can be con-

sidered legal — known as the

age of “sexual majority” —

has always been 15. However,

Verdrager said the question

of whether children under

that age can consent to sex-

ual relations with an adult is

a gray area.

“In the 1980s there was a

very strong movement for

the lowering of the sexual

majority to 13 or 14 and then

progressively getting rid of it

altogether,” said Verdrager.

“The people who supported

this cited Greek mythology

and historical traditions to

support their ideas.”

French identity is en-

twined with reverence for

culture. Literature, cinema

and theater are seen as bea-

cons of enlightenment in a

philistine world. Govern-

ment policy for more than

half a century supported

and defended this idea, giv-

ing rise to the expression

“l’exception culturelle fran-

caise”: the French cultural

exception.

Books are published be-

cause they are considered

artistically worthy, not prof-

itable. Sales of Matzneff ’s

books could be counted

more in the hundreds than

in the tens of thousands.

But artists, writers, di-

rectors, actors like him are

regarded with a certain awe.

France and Switzerland

have refused to extradite the

Polish-French film director

Roman Polanski, wanted in

the U.S. after pleading guilty

to unlawful sex with a 13-

year-old girl in 1978. French

writers and artists argue

that Polanski’s work tran-

scends what many outside

the intelligentsia regard as

moral failings.

This aura feeds into the

French idea of “seduction,”

which has less to do with sex

and is more a mix of allure,

promise and charm.

In 2011, Dominique

Strauss-Kahn, the man who

would have been France’s

next president, was arrested

in New York and charged

with sexual assault and at-

tempted rape of a hotel maid

— charges later dismissed

though he settled a civil suit

for around $1.5 million.

Public figures rose to his

defense, describing the then

chief of the International

Monetary Fund as an invet-

erate seducer of women and

a “brilliant economist.” One

French magazine editor said

Strauss-Kahn was guilty of

nothing more than “un trou-

ssage de domestique,” the

idea that the master can

have his way with a servant

girl.

These sentiments were

shaken in 2018 after revela-

tions against Harvey Wein-

stein, which propelled a

#MeToo movement in

France. French feminists

hailed a long overdue rejec-

tion of the idea that seduc-

tion a la Strauss-Kahn was

acceptable. But not every-

one agreed. One hundred

French women, including

actress Catherine Deneuve

and libertine writer Cather-

ine Millet, signed an open

letter defending men’s “free-

dom to bother women,”

which they said was “indis-

pensable to sexual freedom.”

The letter was seen as a re-

pudiation of Anglo-Saxon

morality and puritanism.

But the Matzneff Affair,

as it is now known, is set to

recast the liberties extended

to writers.

Asked how Matzneff was

able to operate openly as a

pedophile, Bernard Pivot, a

well-known French literary

critic and journalist who has

interviewed the writer many

times, said: “In the 1970s and

1980s, literature came before

morality; today, morality

comes before literature.

Morally, that’s progress.

We’re all more or less the in-

tellectual and moral prod-

ucts of a country and, above

all, an era.”

Latifa Bennari, the

founder and president of the

Blue Angel Assn., a support

network for victims of pedo-

philia and for those with pe-

dophilic inclinations, has

brought a lawsuit against

Matzneff for “glorifying

pedophilia.” She says some

men who were struggling to

control their sexual urges

were given a green light to

abuse minors by his work.

“He wasn’t fantasizing,

he actually did these things

and he wrote about them,”

said Bennari. “I don’t under-

stand how anyone could

have closed their eyes to this.

They say it was a different

era, but pedophilia was ne-

ver acceptable.”

The lawsuit was filed in a

Paris court this month and

will have a full hearing in

September. A criminal in-

vestigation is also underway.

Police have raided the of-

fices of Matzneff ’s publisher,

Gallimard, for unexpur-

gated manuscripts. But it

could take years before a

criminal case comes to trial.

“My aim is to bring

Matzneff to justice for the

first time in his life,” said

Mouhou, the lawyer repre-

senting Blue Angel Assn. in

its lawsuit. “The crime of

promoting pedophilia is five

years’ imprisonment, and

that is what I seek.

“What Matzneff has done

is to incite pedophiles to act.

That is a crime. It’s a scandal

for French society and the

French justice system. The

public prosecutor could

have brought a case against

him, but for a long time they

did nothing. He published

books vaunting pedophilia

as if it was art and literature

when in fact it was a crime.”

Willsher is a special

correspondent.

French author with open

secret may face reckoning

[France,from A1]

GABRIEL MATZNEFF

is a known pedophile.

Jacques DemarthonAFP/Getty

CODOGNO, Italy — Italy
scrambled Sunday to check
the spread of Europe’s first
major outbreak of the new
viral disease amid rapidly
rising numbers of infections
and a third death, calling off
the popular Venice Carnival,
scrapping major league soc-
cer matches in the stricken
area and shuttering thea-
ters, including Milan’s leg-
endary La Scala.
Concern was also on the
rise in neighboring Austria,
which halted all rail traffic to
and from Italy for several
hours after suspicion that a
train at its southern border
with Italy had two passen-
gers possibly infected with
the virus on board, author-
ities said. Austria’s Interior
Ministry said it had been in-
formed by Italy’s railway
company that two passen-
gers had fevers and stopped
the train at the Brenner
crossing before it could en-
ter Austria.
Just before midnight,
however, Austrian Federal
Railways announced on
Twitter that the ban had
been lifted. Austrian Interior
Minister Karl Nehammer
said the two people sus-
pected of being infected with
the virus on the Eurocity 86
train from Venice to Munich,
Germany, had tested nega-
tive and the train would be
allowed to continue on its
way, according to the ORF
broadcast network.
The decision to call off
Venice Carnival was an-
nounced by Veneto regional
Gov. Luca Zaia as the num-
ber of confirmed virus cases
soared, reaching 157 Sunday
night, the largest number
outside Asia.
“The ordinance is im-
mediately operative and will
go into effect at midnight,”
said Zaia, whose area in-
cludes Venice, where thou-
sands packed St. Mark’s
Square. Carnival would have
run through Tuesday.
Roadblocks were set up
in at least some of 10 towns in
the Lombardy region at the
epicenter of the outbreak,
including in Casalpuster-
lengo, to keep people from

leaving or arriving. Even

trains transiting the area

weren’t allowed to stop.

Buses, trains and other

forms of public transporta-

tion — including boats in

Venice — were being disin-

fected, Zaia told reporters.

Museums were also ordered

to shut down after Sunday in

Venice, a top tourist draw

anytime of the year, as well

as in Lombardy.

Authorities said three

people in Venice have tested

positive for the viral disease

known as COVID-19, all of

them in their late 80s. All

were hospitalized in critical

condition.

Other northern regions

with smaller numbers of

cases are Emilia-Romagna

and Piedmont.

Italy’s first two cases

were a Chinese tourist cou-

ple, diagnosed this month

and reported to be recover-

ing in a Rome hospital.

The death on Sunday of

an elderly woman, who was

already suffering from can-

cer when she contracted the

virus, raised the nation’s

death toll to three, said Lom-

bardy regional official Giulio

Gallera.

Authorities expressed

frustration that they haven’t

been able to track down the

source of the virus that is

spreading in the north and

which surfaced last week

when an Italian man in his

late 30s in Codogno became

critically ill.

“The health officials

haven’t been yet able to pin-

point ‘patient zero,’ ” Angelo

Borrelli, head of the national

civil protection agency, told

reporters in Rome.

So for now, Borrelli indi-

cated the strategy is to con-

centrate on closures and

other restrictions to try to

stem the spread.

Gallera told reporters in

Milan that schools, muse-

ums, discos, pubs and thea-

ters would stay closed for at

least seven days. But restau-

rants in Milan and other

Lombardy cities outside the

main cluster area can still

operate since, unlike at con-

certs, in eateries “people are

not congregated in one place

and there is space between

tables,” Gallera said.

Lombardy’s ban on pub-

lic events also extended to

Masses in the predomi-

nantly Roman Catholic na-

tion. Venice also was prohib-

iting public Masses.

Italy confronting

largest outbreak of

virus outside Asia

Authorities call off

Venice Carnival and

other popular events.

associated press

A WOMAN in a mask passes the Milan Duomo. Italy has seen rapidly rising numbers of coronavirus cases.

Luca BrunoAssociated Press