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A Victims Account Fuels a Reckoning Over Abuse of Children in France
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of New York Times
Posted: January 20th, 2020
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/07/world/europe/france-pedop...
The French writer Gabriel Matzneff never hid the fact that he engaged in sex with girls and boys in their early teens or even younger. He wrote countless books detailing his insatiable pursuits and appeared on television boasting about them. Under 16 Years Old, was the title of an early book that left no ambiguity. Still, he never spent a day in jail for his actions or suffered any repercussion. Instead, he won acclaim again and again. Much of Frances literary and journalism elite celebrated him and his work for decades. But the publication, last Thursday, of an account by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, has suddenly fueled an intense debate in France over its historically lax attitude toward sex with minors. It has also shone a particularly harsh light on a period during which some of Frances leading literary figures and newspapers names as big as Foucault, Sartre, Libration and Le Monde aggressively promoted the practice as a form of human liberation, or at least defended it. A day after the publication of Ms. Springoras book, Le Consentement, or Consent, ... the fallout continued. Prosecutors in Paris announced that after analyzing its contents, they had opened an investigation into the case and would also look for other victims in and out of France. In Le Consentement, Ms. Springora recounts being seduced at the age of 14 by the famous writer. She also relates the depression and other psychological problems she suffered from the relationship, and the years it took her to recover.
Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on sexual abuse scandals from reliable major media sources.
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