Writer Gabriel Matzneff, under investigation for rape of minor, says “regret” his past pedophile practices in Asia, while arguing that “at the time”, “no one ever spoke of crime” , in statements to BFMTV.
“A tourist, a stranger, should not behave like that. One must, as an adult, turn one’s head, resist temptation. Naturally I regret, just as if I do something that is not right, I regret, “he said in this interview in Italy, where he has taken refuge since the affair broke out.
“At the time,” he argues, however, “there was talk of embezzlement of minors, incitement of the minor to debauchery, indecent assault … But no one ever spoke of a crime”.
And to add: “It was more than 40 years ago! (…) You were there as a traveler and you had young boys and girls who flirted with you and jumped on you, under the benevolent eye of the police”.
The Paris public prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation in early January for rapes of minors under the age of 15, after the publication of the editor Vanessa Springora’s book “Le Consentement” where she describes her relationship under the influence of the writer over the years. 80, started when she was 13 years old.
The claimed attraction of Gabriel Matzneff, now 83 years old, for those “under 16” and for sex tourism with young boys in Asia, which he has told in books, has long been tolerated in the Parisian literary world.
The writer, who agreed to be filmed by BFMTV but without showing his face, said he did not “want to read” Vanessa Springora’s book. “I will never say anything against her because she is a bright person,” he adds.
He denounces, however, the decision of the Minister of Culture Franck Riester to request the suspension of the annual public allowance which he has received since 2002.
“In a few weeks, I feel socially destroyed. (…) The state drives the point home to drive my head into the water,” he says. “That I kill myself, that I kill myself, that’s the trap! It’s really the Soviet Union! Come on, Matzneff, at the gulag. I don’t know how I’m holding on.”
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