Tag: emmanuel macron
In Sex Cases, An Accusation Is Not Proof Of Guilt

In Sex Cases, An Accusation Is Not Proof Of Guilt

The French actor Gerard Depardieu is world-known as a lusty, usually charming pursuer of the carnal. He's now being accused of crimes against women, some violent in nature. A star of French cinema, Depardieu is being defended by French President Emmanuel Macron. Other supporters are former French first lady Carla Bruni, actress Charlotte Rampling and Depardieu's former partner, actress Carole Bouquet.

An accusation is not a conviction. It is common in custody battles for one parent to falsely accuse the other of child abuse. Jilted lovers are known to smear their ex-partners for revenge. Grifters make false accusations to shake "deep pockets" down for money. And some accusers are mentally unstable.

Depardieu might be guilty of serious crimes, but isn't it early to talk about stripping away his Legion of Honor medal? Depardieu denies the charges of rape and assault and, as Macron says, he deserves a presumption of innocence until a court decides otherwise.

A group leading the war against Depardieu, called MeTooMedia, responded to Macron, "You invoked the presumption of innocence, as if innocence took precedence over presumption."

Well, doesn't it?

Look, serious allegations must be investigated. But until it's established that a crime has been committed, it's only someone's word.

Depardieu is a big fat target who makes gross sexist remarks on the record. A character of enormous appetites, Depardieu is no Cary Grant, nor ever was.

But while rape is a violent crime, publicly saying crude things about a girl on a horse is not. A company would be well in its rights to dismiss an employee who did this, but then the perp would be jobless not incarcerated.

It's not against the law to be a pig, which based on Depardieu's rap sheet of filthy remarks, he may well be. Anyone who wants to boycott his movies is free to do so. Barring him from appearing in movies, however, is another matter.

Hardly a day goes by without some news report that "So-and-so has been accused of sexual harassment." Therefore, he must step down or be blacklisted or hand someone a bag of money. And it's alarming how many allegedly smart people fail to ask whether the individual was guilty and, if so, whether the charge involved truly serious misconduct.

When Joe Biden was running for president in 2020, a random woman accused him of grabbing her privates. What followed were urgent calls for him to leave the race, not so much from Republicans but from Democrats backing one of Biden's competitors for the nomination.

"In an ideal world, the Democrats would not have nominated a candidate whose history included guerrilla-nuzzling women and a possible sexual assault," Jennifer Senior wrote in The New York Times back in 2020.

All this before taking a close look at Biden's accuser. Tara Reade had a history of knocking on the door of her landlord to ask for emotional support. She often didn't pay her rent. She also had a thing for Vladimir Putin and eventually defected to Russia. Yet on the basis of this troubled woman's unverified accusations, Biden's campaign could have fallen.

It's not just the veracity of the accusation that needs questioning; it is also the accusation itself. Biden did "nuzzle" the back of at least one woman's head. He shouldn't have not done that, but characterizing that dated fatherly gesture as a "guerrilla" attack was hysterical.

One of the biggest raps against Depardieu, according to Le Monde, is that, on a trip to North Korea, he was heard "making explicit sexual comments in the presence of a female interpreter." That was no reason for a wax museum in Paris to immediately remove his figure.

Accusations are not facts. How about waiting for facts?

Reprinted with permission from Creators.

Kremlin Bristles At Macron's Mention Of 'Regime Change' In Russia

Kremlin Bristles At Macron's Mention Of 'Regime Change' In Russia

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia on Sunday scolded Emmanuel Macron over remarks about wanting to see Russia defeated, saying Moscow still remembered the fate of Napoleon Bonaparte and accusing the French president of duplicitous diplomacy with the Kremlin.

Macron told paper Le Journal du Dimanche France wanted Russia to be defeated in Ukraine but had never wanted to "crush" it.

"About 'Never': France did not begin with Macron, and the remains of Napoleon, revered at the state level, rest in the centre of Paris. France - and Russia - should understand," Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said.

"In general, Macron is priceless," she said, adding that his remarks showed the West had engaged in discussions about regime change in Russia while Macron had repeatedly sought meetings with the Russian leadership.

Macron has drawn criticism from some NATO allies for delivering mixed messages regarding his policy on the war between Ukraine and Russia, with some considering Paris a weak link in the Western alliance.

On Friday, Macron urged allies to step up military support for Ukraine, but also said he did not believe in regime change and that there would have to be negotiations at some point.

"Let’s be clear, I don't believe for one second in regime change, and when I hear a lot of people calling for regime change I ask them, 'For which change? Who’s next? Who is your leader?'"

Clarifying those comments, he said in the paper that he did not believe a democratic solution from within civil society would emerge in Russia after years of a hardening of Moscow's position and conflict. He added that he saw no alternative to Putin, who had to be brought back to the negotiating table.

"All the options other than Vladimir Putin in the current system seem worse to me," Macron said.

(Reporting by Guy Faulconbridge in Moscow and John Irish in Munich; Editing by Hugh Lawson)


Frequently Asked Questions

Q. What is the connection between Russia and France?

A. France and Russia have a complicated history, but despite their differences, the two countries have maintained a dialogue on various issues. Macron has met with Putin several times, and they have discussed counterterrorism and the Syrian conflict

Q. Did Russia support the French Revolution?

A. Russia was not in support of the French Revolution and joined a coalition of European powers that declared war on France in an attempt to suppress it. Despite several defeats, Russia continued to oppose the revolutionary ideals of France.

Danziger Draws

Danziger Draws

Jeff Danziger lives in New York City. He is represented by CWS Syndicate and the Washington Post Writers Group. He is the recipient of the Herblock Prize and the Thomas Nast (Landau) Prize. He served in the US Army in Vietnam and was awarded the Bronze Star and the Air Medal. He has published eleven books of cartoons, a novel and a memoir. Visit him at DanzigerCartoons.

When Biden Smacked Putin, He Was Playing Bad Cop

When Biden Smacked Putin, He Was Playing Bad Cop

In Michael Kinsley’s immortal definition, "a gaffe is when a politician tells the truth—some obvious truth he isn't supposed to say." By that standard, the term would definitely apply to Joe Biden’s recent condemnation of Vladimir Putin.

“For God’s sake,” Biden blurted out “this man cannot remain in power.”

An international coalition of Nervous Nellies and lunchroom monitors pronounced themselves aghast. You’d think the president had purposely broken wind at a state dinner, or proclaimed a Supreme Court justice’s wife to be as crazy as an outhouse rat.

No sooner had he made the remark at the end of a powerful speech expressing the West’s determination to resist Russian aggression—Biden warned Putin not to advance “on one single inch” of NATO territory—than White House staff began walking it back. “Regime change” in Russia, they emphasized, is not American policy.

A hand-wringing Washington Post headline read: “Biden’s Putin remark pushes U.S.-Russia relations closer to collapse.”

Not Putin’s manifest crimes against humanity, mind you, but Biden’s outburst. Might it not push Putin’s imagined paranoia over the edge?

On the Sunday talk shows, Republican politicians competed with Kremlin spokesmen to express their shock. On NBC’s Meet the Press, GOP Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio worried that Biden’s indignation “plays into the hands of Russian propagandists and plays into the hands of Vladimir Putin.”

Kremlin mouthpiece Dmitri Peskov said it wasn’t up to Biden to decide who the Russian president should be. Somewhat laughably, he insisted that was up to the “Russian people,” whose say-so is entirely theoretical, given Putin’s practice of having political rivals jailed or murdered. Indeed, the Little Tsar’s reign resembles nothing so much as a series of footnotes to Dostoyevsky’s prophetic 1872 novel The Possessed. Suffice it to say that Russia has never experienced democracy—lurching periodically from one form of dictatorship to another.

Even so, America’s imaginary determination to conquer Russia is a major feature of the Putin regime’s propaganda, despite the U.S. having restrained itself from trying since 1945. Anybody familiar with Russian suffering in World War II can understand a degree of national paranoia, although Biden was surely correct to say that Putin’s pledge to “de-Nazify” Ukraine is both “cynical” and “obscene.”

Nevertheless, to many Russians, it plays,

That said, and much to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s dismay, everything about President Biden’s strong, but measured approach to Ukraine’s agony has demonstrated extreme U.S. reluctance to go to war in Russia’s backyard. First Napoleon and then Adolf Hitler long ago proved the futility of doing so.

And that was before Russia acquired nuclear weapons.

Even so, God forbid that the Russian dictator should get his little feelings hurt. Why he might do something crazy, such as bomb Ukrainian apartment buildings, hospitals and orphanages.

War crimes all.

Even French President Emanuel Macron of France, a stalwart NATO ally, expressed a degree of concern with Biden’s outburst. “I wouldn’t use this kind of words,” Macron of France said in a television interview. He said that he hoped to broker a cease-fire and a Russian withdrawal by diplomatic means. “If we want to do this,” Macron added, “we mustn’t escalate,” he said, “neither with words nor with actions.”

Down at the police station, this tactic is known as the Good Cop/Bad Cop approach to dealing with recalcitrant suspects. And cops use it because it works. Do you want to cut a deal with the very angry American president, or the more understanding French one?

Italy’s foreign minister, Luigi Di Maio, put it another way. President Biden, he said, had used words “that must make Putin clearly understand that he has to stop.” The American president,” he added, made “a very clear speech, he used resolute words…But let’s remember that on the other side, Putin uses bombs.”

Was Ronald Reagan wrong to call the Soviet Union an “Evil Empire?” Was it a terrible gaffe by a doddering old man to personalize the Cold War, when Reagan urged “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall?” Many thought so at the time, but few would say so now.

In his Warsaw speech, Biden cast the Ukraine crisis as a new Cold War, a generational conflict: “a new great battle for freedom: a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between rules-based order and one governed by brute force.”

Like blogger Kevin Drum, I doubt Biden’s spontaneous remark will send Putin over the edge. “Quite the opposite: the fact that Biden is obviously very sincere in his loathing of Putin makes it clear that the US and NATO are unlikely to back down in Ukraine.” He’d be well advised to find a pathway to retreat from a disaster of his own creation.

Good cop/Bad cop.

Biden himself now says he never meant to endorse a policy of “regime change,” but had an emotional reaction to meeting with Ukrainian refugees in Poland.

That’s good enough for me.