He had just played Abbé Pierre in the cinema: Benjamin Lavernhe speaks for the first time on the affair

He had just played Abbé Pierre in the cinema: Benjamin Lavernhe speaks for the first time on the affair

It was an explosion that happened this summer. On July 17, 2024, Emmaüs International published an eight-page report commissioned from the Egaé firm, which presents the testimonies of seven women reporting “behavior that may amount to sexual assault or acts of sexual harassment” on the part of the Abbé Pierre between the end of the 1970s and 2005. This date marks the beginning of the fall of the French icon, whose life had been the subject of several films.

The last one dates from only a year ago since in November 2023, a biopic entitled Abbé Pierre: a life of struggle by Frédéric Tellier, with Benjamin Laverhne. The latter received a César nomination for his performance but had not yet spoken on the very delicate subject. It is now done since Rebecca Marder's companion spoke in the show Beau Geste on France 2, broadcast on November 10, 2024.

“To say to ourselves that we missed out on that and we didn't see it, that's what's most terrible“, describes the actor Benjamin Lavernhe about the accusations of sexual violence perpetrated for years by the abbot. His testimony can be found in the show Nice Gestureto be seen this evening on France 2. With the film team “we are devastated“, he declares. “I'm already thinking about the victims, there are 25 testimonies and it's terrible. Obviously, we feel a great betrayal, a great sadness. (…) Astonishment. I'm looking for words, but it's hard to find them. From fear, because somewhere, it was an ami“, adds the one who had never met him but had “the impression of having known him a little”.

“How could this guy who did so many extraordinary things behave so badly? And beyond! The duality of the human being, the ambivalence, it's always a shock“, insists the actor noticed in The meaning of the party. “And of course Fréderic Tellier and all the teams are devastated. (…) To say to ourselves that we missed that and that we didn't see it, well that's what's the most terrible. So yes, It's going to take time to recover.“

Director Frédéric Tellier in shock, just like Lambert Wilson

The director Frédéric Tellier spoke last September in the pages of Telerama : “I spent five years making this film, watching my children grow up, taking them to the Abbé-Pierre Foundation, giving them comics about him… I feel like a somewhat distant collateral victim. Not at the level of the victims who suffered these attacks, of course.“A work which could well be broadcast on television, but under certain conditions.

Lambert Wilson, who played Abbé Pierre in the film Winter 54 released in 1989, was also stunned, especially since he had met the religious man. “I discovered at the same time as everyone else what the Emmaus Foundation publishes. I am speechless. That is to say that I spent a lot of time with him, he was a kind of spiritual guide for me, very important in my life. For me he was someone who was struggling, and he said so, with celibacy. He respected the church and celibacy was complicated, and he expressed it.”notably declared the actor in the show C to you.