Nobel laureate drops French book prize for pedophile writer

Nobel Prize-winning writer JMG Le Clezio announced Thursday that he would resign from the jury for one of France’s biggest literary prizes because he paid tribute to pedophile Gabriel Matzneff.

Le Clézio said he was “firmly opposed” to Matzneff winning the Renaudot prize in 2013 for a volume of his diaries, but “they did not listen to me”.

The novelist, who won the Nobel Prize in 2008, is the second judge to leave the jury thanks to Matzneff, who has never hidden his predilection for teenagers, boys and girls.

Le Clézio described the book: “Séraphin is the end! (“Séraphin, it’s over!”), As an “excuse for rape” and told the French daily Le Figaro that he had “read it with great disgust”.

Journalist Jérôme Garcin left the jury in protest last month and, like him, Le Clezio said he wanted to see more women judging the award.

At the moment, only one woman sits on the 10-person jury.

The French literary world was shaken by the scandal around Matzneff.

The 83-year-old held a special place in the book world until January, when attitudes towards the writer changed dramatically after publisher Vanessa Springora revealed her tortured relationship with him in her bestseller. , “Consent”.

Matzneff – who fled to Italy after the scandal broke – is due to stand trial next year for justifying pedophilia, and prosecutors launched a rape investigation the day after Springora’s book was published.

A second woman also spoke out on Wednesday, saying she had been treated and checked by the writer.

Francesca Gee said he used her when she was a schoolgirl in the 1970s, waiting for her every day outside her high school when she was 15.

She told the New York Times that Matzneff used her photo and the explicit letters the columnist encouraged her to write to her in his books against his will, including in his notorious defense of pedophilia, “The Under Sixteen.” , (“The Under 16s”).