Former television host Bernard Pivot, accused of complacency with the writer Gabirel Matzneff, who openly displayed his attraction for teenagers, said on Monday his “Regret” considering that they did not have at the time “The right words”.
“Host of literary programs on television, I would have needed a lot of lucidity and a great strength of character to escape the drifts of a freedom which my colleagues from the print media and radio stations were just as accustomed to.”, explains Bernard Pivot in a text addressed to JDD, where he writes a column.
“These qualities, I did not have them. I obviously regret it, having in addition the feeling of not having had the right words “, adds the former host of “Apostrophes”.
“Above morality”
The self-proclaimed taste of Gabriel Matzneff, now 83, for young girls and boys has never wowed the publishing world. But the release scheduled for January 2 of Consent, where editor Vanessa Springora describes how she was seduced by Gabriel Matzneff, almost 50, when she was 14, is changing the game.
For the past few days, a video by Bernard Pivot has been quizzically asking the writer about his sexual attraction for “Under 16” caused a scandal on social networks, almost thirty years after its publication.
“After May 68 whose major slogan was “It is forbidden to forbid“, books like those of Gabriel Matzneff have been published without the intervention of justice, without even the associations for the defense of children and the family protesting “, explains Bernard Pivot.
“We even saw the greatest writers of the time petitioning for the release of three men imprisoned for having sex with young adolescents. The world of books and literature then judged themselves above the law and morals ”, he adds.
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