There was indeed this ministerial reshuffle, the uselessness of which I could have developed in this note; After all, Borne was an excellent leader and Attal is a little young and inexperienced for the role (but "aux âmes bien nées", according to Corneille, nothing resists, and his appointment will ruffle someone; We'll see what happens), as well as more important issues of concern, emerging every day, such as Trump the psychotic, or Putin the new 'emperor and autocrat of all the Russias'. There was plenty to choose from, and I had no desire to revisit the Depardieu affair, the tragicomedy that actors and acrobats in search of a role and publicity never tire of playing out every day. But two or three of the tirades spouted by these second-hand tabarins caught my attention and made me wonder about the capacity for sound reasoning of these grandstand tartufes. Each for herself, playing the self-proclaimed prosecutor, two cabotines among others spouted their indictments like a Fouquier-Tinville resurrected in Moscow, Beijing or Teheran. One of them, unaware of what a lawyer is, told the woman defending Depardieu, with her usual vulgarity, to "shut the fuck up", calling her a "cunt" (on this subject, it's worth noting the prudishing of the newspapers, most of which split up words they find trivial with small dots). As for the second, with a certain enjoyment she testified, without specifying the date, place or work in question, that she had seen, with her own eyes, "Gérard's big fingers plunging into an extra's knickers to grope her intimacy". And I'm not going to mention the third person, tall for want of anything else, disavowing the signature he had signed the day before at the bottom of a petition. All three flouted the presumption of innocence. They're not the only ones, because with the same fervour as Savonarola sending his parishioners to the stake, theocratic morons want to censor the films Depardieu plays in, and disenchanted old women, menopausal actresses and amnesiac journalists wake up one morning and think that they too, in their youth, had to suffer the assaults of the behemoth. This barking pack frightened me into changing my tune.

     Holà, operetta buffoons, we're not in a theatre, or a film, or a dictatorship, we're in a democracy where justice is dispensed in courtrooms, in a judge's chambers and never in the public square or in a summary way. The presumption of innocence, our attenuated Anglo-Saxon habeas corpus, which guarantees individual freedom and prevents arbitrariness, is constantly violated by you envious cold pisses who play your part with the constancy of prostate running to the toilet.

     One more word. Leave it to the justice, which is not only impartial but also severe (43% of sentences for rape exceed 10 years in prison). To convince yourself of this, all you have to do is attend an assize court session where one rape is tried (there are more rape trials than murder trials, on the order of 4 to 1 according to my own estimates). Then you will know, from the accused, the witnesses, the investigators, the experts, all pressed with questions, wrung out, hugged, exhorted, what the answers are, the testimonies and the reports dissected by the President, the public prosecutor, those of the defence or the civil parties, what an accusation is, a real indictment, a real argument. You will discover the obvious role of a lawyer, far, far removed from your pitiful antics, as well as what a real prosecution and defence debate is all about. But also the risk inherent in not assisting a person in danger, if you were witnesses without reacting, and if it is shown that the defendant is guilty, of a sentence equivalent to his own. Because rape is a crime. Everything else on your part is just a Puppet show posturing with the sergeant.

     Finally, by lowering the red curtain on your declamatory exploits, you will prevent society from believing that your pantomimes are a reflection of the truth and that our democracy, whose principles you and the media are currently violating, is becoming a dictatorship with you.