Reporters Without Borders opposes a court decision requiring a production company to hand over to the actor the recordings which were used in the Further investigation about her.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) denounced on Wednesday “a risk of breaching the secrecy of sources”, in reaction to a court decision summoning a production company, accused by Gérard Depardieu of having manipulated images of Additional Investigationto give recordings to the actor.
In this Further investigation broadcast in December on France 2, we see Gérard Depardieu, faced with accusations of rape and sexual assault which he disputes, multiplying misogynistic and insulting remarks towards women and making others of a sexual nature when a small girl on horseback passes the image, during a trip to North Korea in 2018.
A decision “which threatens the confidentiality of sources”
However, the actor, who has taken France Télévisions and the production company Hikari to court, wishes to prove that his comments were not aimed at the little girl. Last week, the Paris judicial court ordered Hikari to hand over the recordings “corresponding strictly to the sequence filmed (…) in the stud farm”, citing a “concern for transparency” and deeming “not proven” a violation of the secrecy of sources. The Hikari company appealed this decision and France Télévisions joined in this process.
In a press release published on its site on Wednesday, Reporters Without Borders asked “the court of appeal to annul” this decision “which threatens the confidentiality of journalists’ sources”, considering that “the lawsuit brought by Gérard Depardieu” does not is “not a simple matter of transparency between two parties to a procedure”.
“The decision to force journalists to provide their rushes (raw images, without editing, editor’s note) beyond the broadcast extract” could “set a precedent and increase the risk of infringement” of the “fundamental principle” of the secrecy of sources , continues Thibaut Bruttin, deputy to the director general of RSF, quoted in the press release.
“We ask the Court of Appeal to assess the implications of such a decision,” he insists.
“Cornerstone of press freedom”
The NGO recalls more broadly that the threats weighing on the secrecy of sources, “cornerstone of press freedom”, returned to the forefront in France in September 2023.
A journalist collaborating with the investigative media Disclose was placed in police custody and saw her home searched as part of a judicial investigation for compromising national defense secrets, after a series of articles on sales of French weapons abroad and the possible diversion by Egypt of a French intelligence mission.
