In January 1977, Bernard Dejager, Jean-Claude Gallien, and Jean Burckhardt were sentenced to five years imprisonment at the Cour d’Assizes in Versailles. Four years earlier, they had been arrested for indecent assault, having had sexual relations with a boy and girl of 13 and 14 at a campsite in Meudon.[i] The buildup to this trial was extraordinary. In an intellectual environment where sexual freedom was a critical issue, a campaign was launched supporting the accused. It was suggested that they had done nothing wrong, as the teenagers had consented. The campaign was so strong that, for the first time in French history for a case like this, the trial was open, so that the public could see the harm that they had done.

The campaign’s flag-bearer was controversial author Gabriel Matzneff, who published a number of pieces defending these men, including three in Le Monde, two of which were signed by many well-known French intellectuals. Matzneff was long a member of France’s intellectual elite, writing for the country’s most prestigious publications. He was, however, best known for his literature, which would mostly be gratuitous retellings of his paedophilic tendencies. It is therefore perhaps unsurprising that he was so devoted to his defence of these men. He was only finally brought under fire in 2019, following the release of Le Consentement, a novel by one of his victims, Vanessa Springora, recounting what she had experienced. We must wonder how he was allowed to get away with this behaviour for so long.[ii] Analysing some of Matzneff’s work in relation to this case shows the impunity which French intellectuals faced, and that figures like Matzneff used their prominent positions in the media to justify their reprehensible actions and go unpunished. 

Matzneff in Le Monde

Over the course of 1976 and 77, Matzneff published three pieces in Le Monde, lamenting the outcome of this case. The first of these was entitled ‘L’Amour est-il un crime?’ This op-ed is an emotive piece. It describes the accused as though they are men who are merely being prosecuted for their love.[iii] He refers to his personal experience with teenagers, making it appear scandalous that these men should be facing prison time, describing that when he met one of the accused, he was an ‘homme cassé.’[iv] He argues that it is this supposedly strict regimentation of their sex lives which is damaging for children, rather than sexual relations with much older men. In fact, he claims that a relationship with a teenager can be absolutely crucial for their development. He even says that ‘amoureux de l’extrême jeunesse,’[v] such as himself, are the first people who would demand that rape be severely punished, and that with the children having consented, the men are not rapists. This article is the only one that does not have signatories, and in a world where talking about children in these terms is completely unacceptable, it reads troublingly. Matzneff comes across as a fanatic going on a ramble about something that appears completely unjustifiable. And yet it was published in Le Monde, one of France’s most powerful newspapers. While Television’s relevance was growing in this era, the written word was the most common medium for French intellectuals in the 1970s. Newspapers were the most effective way to reach a wide audience, and with his passionate language and appeals to love, Matzneff is clearly trying to get public support. 

Matzneff’s next two pieces, one petition and one open letter, were written anonymously. The first was a petition titled ‘A Propos d’un Procès.’ It is short and explains that the severity of the punishment to be faced by the men is disproportionate. It claims that France was a society which was very accepting of relationships between adults and teenagers, so it shouldn’t be a crime.[vi] It is more significant though, because this petition is signed by a star-studded lineup of more than seventy intellectuals.[vii] These include Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and many more. Here is the full list:

Fig. 1 : ‘A Propos d’un Procès’, Le Monde, 26 January 1977

Suddenly, Matzneff might not seem like such a madman. Seeing the signatures of France’s most famous and respected intellectuals, a Le Monde reader might start to take seriously the question of the age of consent. Jean-François Sirinelli explains that petitions signed by intellectuals possessed a certain ‘esprit de sérieux.’ He argues that this means that the public would usually pay attention to issues brought up by intellectuals, if for no other reason than that they were seen as intelligent.[viii] Matzneff’s defence of three paedophiles could no longer be dismissed. We can imagine that Matzneff was aware of the power that intellectuals had to create narratives through the media. By having all these signatories on side, Gabriel Matzneff’s rampant paedophilia suddenly becomes protected by a veil of sexual liberalism and intellectualism.

So long protected

In a television interview, Matzneff was confronted about his aforementioned work by Canadian author Denise Bombardier.[ix] For this, Bombardier faced a vitriolic campaign by Matzneff’s peers. Writer, and signatory of the petitions, Philippe Sollers called her ‘a bitch who needs a good fucking.’[x] She rightly accused Matzneff of using his ‘aura littéraire’ to manipulate young children after he claimed that his relationships with them were built on love and mutual seduction.[xi] Clearly, defending paedophilia was important to the intellectual elite.

The tide finally turned on Matzneff with the 2020 release of Le Consentement, a book by Vanessa Springora, one of his victims. Following this, it came to light just how much Matzneff was protected. She detailed that Yves Saint-Laurent paid for Matzneff to stay indefinitely at a hotel near her school, while those like Bombardier who challenged him were accused of being reactionary. Clearly, as stated in the petition, this part of French society did see these relationships as normal. Matzneff built his career on justifying his relationships as equally beneficial to the children as they were to him. Springora, though, described that for years after their relationship, when she was fourteen, she felt insecure in her sexuality, and was expelled from school due to absence.[xii] This immediately dismisses Matzneff’s justifications both for himself and the accused in Versailles, but how is it possible that even to this day, he never faced trial?

Douglas Morrey argues that by writing books about his experiences, his victims appeared fictional, making it more difficult for people to understand the real damage he did. Not least because he wrote about his relationships as those of love and seduction. Like with hisarticles, by being so open about his sexual tendencies, he made his actions seem justifiable, particularly knowing that his sexual politics had the support of France’s A-listers.[xiii] With his work, Matzneff turned his sick sexual proclivities into a strand of sexual liberation. Lily Dunn describes the Springora’s book as a ‘bomb,’ striking at France’s intellectual elite.[xiv] She blames the reverence of French intellectuals, as they saw themselves as unshackled by moral codes imposed on ‘ordinary people.’[xv] She believes that pro-paedophilia sentiment was allowed to grow during the 1970s expansion of sexual liberation: ‘suddenly ‘No!’ was a very unsexy word.’[xvi] With his campaign in Le Monde, Matzneff tried to reveal to the public that these relationships were normal and loving like any other, his huge platform helping him escape justice. The intellectuals had such power over the media, that they could publish letters such as Matzneff’s. Perhaps he was using his position as an intellectual to try and shape France into a nation more accepting of such behaviour.

Taking advantage of a privileged position

It is popular to praise French intellectuals for their use of media to bring to light issues which might not otherwise have been. They have been credited with bringing forward debates about homosexuality, contraception and so on. As Martyn Cornick highlights, French intellectuals had a unique capacity to manipulate political power.[xvii] Issues discussed by French intellectuals were usually taken seriously due to their prominence and apparent seriousness. As we have seen, though, this is also problematic. Dunn explains that the elite’s impunity created a hierarchy of sexuality, with intellectuals, naturally, at the top. They would use this position from which to attack the bourgeois system.[xviii] Matzneff’s letters clearly represent an assault on the system, calling the Versailles case an attack on free speech, and age of consent laws ‘l’instrument de coercion.’[xix] He even attacks both the left and the right for their lack of political interest.[xx] Intellectuals were known for being opposed to societal norms, so why would they care if somebody told them that paedophilia was wrong, clearly that person is just a shill for the system.

With the Versailles case, Matzneff saw an opportunity to make paedophilia a new wave in the 1970s sexual revolution in France. He saw these men like himself, clear from the impassioned way in which he writes about them and their ‘passion amoureuse.’[xxi] In these letters and beyond, he always wrote about paedophilia passionately and romantically, it is grotesque how strongly it comes across. In one of his novels, he stated ‘to sleep with a child, it’s a holy experience, a baptismal event, a sacred adventure.’[xxii] It speaks to the culture of complicity in French intellectual circles, that Matzneff wrote that and never faced trial. However, in an era in which Le Monde was full of articles about sexual liberation, a reader might be affected by these petitions, written in such emotional terms. Intellectuals could make the narrative around any subject change, and by the final open letter, they were calling for reform of age of consent law.[xxiii] In many ways Matzneff’s use of the newspapers worked, France’s first statutory rape law was only introduced in 2018, making it much easier for him to escape justice.[xxiv]

A group of elites protecting paedophiles is sadly not a thing of the past, however it is rare to see a paedophile parade his behaviour so openly and proudly. Amid a revolution of sexual liberties, Matzneff saw an opportunity to use his platform as an intellectual to not only protect himself, but all those charged with such crimes, like the Versailles three. This is a consequence of treating French intellectuals with such reverence, that they can say anything and be taken seriously. And these are the ugly consequences.

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[i] Pierre Georges, ‘L’enfant, l’amour, l’adulte’, Le Monde, 29 January 1977 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1977/01/29/l-enfant-l-amour-l-adulte_2853328_1819218.html [accessed 1 November 2025].

[ii] Norimitsu Onishi, ‘A Pedophile Writer is on Trial’, The New York Times, 11 February 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/fr/2020/02/11/world/europe/france-gabriel-matzneff-pedophilie.html [accessed 1 November 2025].

[iii] Gabriel Matzneff, ‘L’Amour est-il un crime ?’, Le Monde, 8 November 1976 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1976/11/08/l-amour-est-il-un-crime_2945401_1819218.html [accessed 2 November 2025].

[iv] Matzneff, ‘L’Amour est-il un crime ?’

[v] ibid.

[vi] ‘A Propos d’un Procès’, Le Monde, 26 January 1977 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1977/01/26/a-propos-d-un-proces_2854399_1819218.html [accessed 2 November 2025].

[vii] ‘A Propos d’un Procès’.

[viii] Jean-François Sirinelli, Intellectuels et passions françaises (Fayard, 1986), p. 270.

[ix] Ina Culture, ‘1990: Gabriel Matzneff opposite Denise Bombardier in “Apostrophes”’, Youtube, 26 December 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LQiv7x4xs [accessed 2 November 2025]. 

[x] Jacques Van Rillaer, ‘Denise Bombardier évoque Gabriel Matzneff et Phillipe Sollers’, Le Club de Mediapart, 30 December 2019 https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jacques-van-rillaer/blog/301219/denise-bombardier-evoque-gabriel-matzneff-et-philippe-sollers [accessed 2 November 2025].

[xi] ‘1990: Gabriel Matzneff opposite Denise Bombardier’, Youtube.

[xii] Douglas Morrey, ‘Vanessa Springora, Gabriel Matzneff and the Problem of Consent’, Nottingham French Studies, 61.3 (2022), https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/nfs.2022.0358 [accessed 2 November 2025].

[xiii] ibid.

[xiv] Lily Dunn, ‘Idealising the Predator’, Aeon, 9 December 2021 https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-french-bohemian-elite-celebrated-predatory-behaviour [accessed 2 November 2025].

[xv] ibid.

[xvi] ibid.

[xvii] Martyn Cornick, ‘Intellectuals in French Culture’, Contemporary French Cultural Studies, 1 (2014), pp. 270-286 (p. 271), https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/2ffda8a6-739b-4926-818c-9d989b3aaee3/chapter/pdf?context=ubx [accessed 2 November 2025].

[xviii] Dunn.

[xix] ‘1977 French Petition against Age of Consent Laws’, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/letter-scanned-and-ocr/mode/1up [accessed 2 November 2025].

[xx] Matzneff, ‘L’amour est-il un crime ?’.

[xxi] Matzneff, ‘L’amour est-il un crime ?’.

[xxii] Dunn

[xxiii] ‘1977 French Petition against Age of Consent Laws’

[xxiv] ‘France to present first statutory rape law’, DW, 3 June 2018 https://www.dw.com/en/france-to-present-first-statutory-rape-law/a-42848246 [accessed 2 November 2025].

Further Reading:

‘1977 French Petition against Age of Consent Laws’, Internet Archive, https://archive.org/details/letter-scanned-and-ocr/mode/1up [accessed 2 November 2025]

A Propos d’un Procès’, Le Monde, 26 January 1977 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1977/01/26/a-propos-d-un-proces_2854399_1819218.html [accessed 2 November 2025].

Cornick, Martyn, ‘Intellectuals in French Culture’, Contemporary French Cultural Studies, 1 (2014), pp. 270-286, https://www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/read-online/2ffda8a6-739b-4926-818c-9d989b3aaee3/chapter/pdf?context=ubx [accessed 2 November 2025]

Dunn, Lily, ‘Idealising the Predator’, Aeon, 9 December 2021 https://aeon.co/essays/how-the-french-bohemian-elite-celebrated-predatory-behaviour [accessed 2 November 2025].

France to present first statutory rape law’, DW, 3 June 2018 https://www.dw.com/en/france-to-present-first-statutory-rape-law/a-42848246 [accessed 2 November 2025]

Georges, Pierre, ‘L’enfant, l’amour, l’adulte’, Le Monde, 29 January 1977 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1977/01/29/l-enfant-l-amour-l-adulte_2853328_1819218.html [accessed 1 November 2025]

Ina Culture, ‘1990: Gabriel Matzneff opposite Denise Bombardier in “Apostrophes”’, Youtube, 26 December 2016 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0LQiv7x4xs [accessed 2 November 2025]

Matzneff, Gabriel, ‘L’Amour est-il un crime ?’, Le Monde, 8 November 1976 https://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/1976/11/08/l-amour-est-il-un-crime_2945401_1819218.html [accessed 2 November 2025]

Morrey, Douglas, ‘Vanessa Springora, Gabriel Matzneff and the Problem of Consent’, Nottingham French Studies, 61.3 (2022), https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/10.3366/nfs.2022.0358 [accessed 2 November 2025]

Onishi, Norimitsu, ‘A Pedophile Writer is on Trial’, The New York Times, 11 February 2020 https://www.nytimes.com/fr/2020/02/11/world/europe/france-gabriel-matzneff-pedophilie.html [accessed 1 November 2025]

Percy, Noah, ‘The Age of Consent and Its Discontents: French Intellectuals and the Reform of Sexual Violence Law, 1968–1982’ (Undergraduate History Thesis, Columbia University, 2022) https://history.columbia.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/29/2022/05/Percy-Noah_Senior-Thesis-Update.pdf [accessed 2 November 2025]

Sirinelli, Jean-François, Intellectuels et passions françaises (Fayard, 1986)

Van Rillaer, Jacques, ‘Denise Bombardier évoque Gabriel Matzneff et Phillipe Sollers’, Le Club de Mediapart, 30 December 2019 https://blogs.mediapart.fr/jacques-van-rillaer/blog/301219/denise-bombardier-evoque-gabriel-matzneff-et-philippe-sollers [accessed 2 November 2025]