The pillory is the stuff of the Ancien Régime and does not advance the cause of women

Concerned by the culture of preventive sentencing that is taking hold in the country, by the “presumption of guilt” that has replaced the presumption of innocence, 136 intellectuals have published an open letter in defense of the actor Sofiane Bennacer, accused of rape

Paris. It’s November 25, the international day against violence against women. There is one week left before the release in French cinemas of the new film by Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, “Les Amandiers”, the rousing story of three twenty-year-olds at the winding down of the eighties, Stella, Adèle and Étienne, admitted to the prestigious Les Amandiers theater acting school in Nanterre. The film, presented at the Cannes Film Festival, is highly anticipated. But Libération, the daily newspaper of the Parisian left, published an unexpected front page that day, which surprised everyone: “The scandal of ‘Les Amandiers’. Actor Sofiane Bennacer accused of rape”. Next to the shouted title of Libération and the bombastic subtitles that anticipate the contents of the internal pages (“The testimony of the victims in Libé”, “Inquiry into the filming under silence”, “The César Academy in the storm”), there is the face of the young French actor, current partner of Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, who plays Étienne in the film. In the photo chosen by the newspaper, Sofiane Bennacer has a psychopathic look and blood on her hands.