the writer Gabriel Matzneff heard by the police in free hearing

The writer Gabriel Matznefftargeted by an investigation for rape of a minor under the age of 15 following the publisher’s revelations in early 2020 Vanessa Springorawas heard on Wednesday in free hearing by the police, AFP learned from sources familiar with the matter.

Police officers from the Central Office for the Suppression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP), based in Nanterre, questioned him “on the various elements collected by the investigation, in particular his writings”, according to a source familiar with the matter. Requested by AFP, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed this free hearing. Contacted, Gabriel Matzneff’s lawyer, Me Emmanuel Pierrat, did not wish to make a statement.

Twenty-four hours after the book’s release The consent by Vanessa Spingora, in early 2020, in which the editor implicated the writer, now 86 years old, the Paris prosecutor’s office had opened an investigation for rape of a minor under the age of 15.

In her book, Vanessa Springora told how she had been seduced by Gabriel Matzneff when she was not even 14 years old and he was almost 50 years old, as well as the weight of this story on her life, punctuated by depressions.

She was the first to testify publicly among the teenage girls seduced by Gabriel Matzneff, an author long celebrated by the French literary community and awarded the Renaudot essay prize in 2013.

The author, who has long enjoyed tolerance from part of the intelligentsia and the media in France, has claimed himself as “pedophile”recounting at length, in numerous books, his relationships with minors and his taste for sex tourism with young boys in Asia.

Since then he said “to regret” his past pedophile practices in Asia, while arguing that“at the time”, “nobody ever talked about crime”.

In September 2021, another woman, the former British journalist of Italian origin Francesca Geehad in turn accused the writer.

In The Deadliest Weaponself-published, she recounted having had a relationship with Gabriel Matzneff when she was 15, in the 1970s, and denounced the mess of the judicial investigation targeting this man.

The investigation seems to be moving, because of prescription, towards a classification without follow-up.

A source close to the investigation recently told AFP 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 Mr. Matzneff’s prolific writings and a hard drive, made the investigations last longer than expected.

Gabriel Matzneff, who had retired to Italy after the accusations of Vanessa Springora, claims to be the victim of revenge from the latter and from Francesca Gee after painful separations.