The Matzneff scandal shows France’s attitude to consent is finally starting to change | Natasha Lehrer
by Natasha Lehrer from on (#4XPX9)
The French literary establishment once protected a writer who boasted of his predilection for underage girls. No longer
Over the last few weeks, the Parisian literary elite has been contorting itself into elaborate knots over the behaviour of Gabriel Matzneff, the 83-year-old prizewinning novelist, essayist and predator. In Le Consentement, an explosive new memoir, Vanessa Springora describes her relationship with Matzneff, which began in the mid-1980s, when she was 14 and he in his 50s. Springora was seduced by Matzneff after meeting him at a dinner party to which her mother had taken her. She writes of spending afternoons fellating Matzneff, while her schoolfriends hung out in the playground around the corner.
Related: French prosecutors open rape inquiry into author Gabriel Matzneff
Continue reading...