a pattern that recalls others

The abject facts of which the actor is accused by two women in “” sadly echo the Depardieu and PPDA cases, both in the modus operandi and in the influence that these men allegedly exercised over the complainants.

Reading the testimonies of Agathe Pujol and Pauline Darcel, who accuse Philippe Caubère of sexual violence and control, is doubly edifying. It is edifying because the facts they denounce are intolerable and abject. It is edifying because we find the same modus operandi as in certain major cases that have hit the headlines in recent years, those concerning Gérard Depardieu or Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, two men of the same generation. Here again, the scenario seems to be the same: a powerful character in his community, adored by very young women, takes advantage of his aura to attract vulnerable people into his web, either because of their young age, or because of their loneliness, or because of their social class. This violence denounced results from crazy narcissism and egotism but also from great cowardice, because what could be easier than taking advantage of minors or young and defenseless women who understand too late what is happening to them? arrive.

Trained at Ariane Mnouchkine’s theater school of the Soleil, founded shortly after 1968 in a community spirit, Philippe Caubère was the leading figure of a certain theater inherited from those years, with uninhibited speech, play virtuoso and exhilarating, even exalted. He is part of this post-1968 generation for whom everything seemed permitted, including the worst forbidden things, which he claimed in his very autobiographical “singles on stage” which each time attracted full houses. But that was before #MeToo, which suddenly opened society’s eyes to the numerous abuses women were victims of in all walks of life, and first of all in culture. Philippe Caubère was also one of those who very quickly denounced the “drifts” of this movement born from the violence perpetrated against women by the American producer Harvey Weinstein. So you can be talented but behave like a complete bastard and understand nothing about developments in the world.