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French President Emmanuel Macron

President Emmanuel Macron of France is under fire for his remarks that film icon Gerard Depardieu, charged with rape and facing a litany of sexual assault claims, was the target of "a manhunt."

During a television interview on Wednesday aired on France 5 TV channel, Macron was asked whether France’s highest state award Légion d’Honneur (Legion of Honor), which was awarded to Depardieu in 1996, should be withdrawn, to which he replied, "You will never see me take part in a manhunt. I hate that kind of thing."

"The presumption of innocence is part of our values."

He said he was a "great admirer" of Depardieu, whom he called "a great actor" who made France "proud."

"It was expected of the President of the Republic to talk about women, and not simply to say that Gérard Depardieu was a great actor," former French President François Hollande told France Inter. "He has made this cause the big deal of his five-year term and this is how he is dealing with the issue of Gérard Depardieu."

"Emmanuel Macron has picked his side - that of the aggressors," Sandrine Rousseau, a Green party lawmaker, said on X, and called the comments "an insult to the movement that gives a voice to the victims of sexual violence."

Sophie Bussiere, another Green party spokeswoman, accused him of being the "chief promoter of rape culture."

Depardieu, 74, who has made more than 200 films and TV series, was charged with rape in 2020 and has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by more than a dozen women. He denies all of them.

He is currently facing a new investigation over sexist comments that were caught on camera during a 2018 trip to North Korea, which was aired for the first time in a state TV documentary The Fall of The Ogre earlier this month.

Last week, French Culture Minister Rima Abdul Malak said the actor’s behavior shamed France.

Macron also said during the interview, "We don’t take the Legion d’Honneur away from an artist on the basis of a TV report or whatever else, because if we started doing that, we’d have to take the Legion d’Honneur away from a lot of artists." The Legion of Honor "is not there to impose moral standards" on the recipient, the president said.

On Saturday, a Belgian municipality stripped Depardieu of the title of an honorary citizen over his misogynistic comments he made in The Fall of The Ogre.

On December 13, the Canadian province of Quebec revoked its top honor over Depardieu’s "scandalous" comments about women.