The race for the Palme d'Or is on, and the world hasn't come to an end, an earthquake hasn't destroyed the Cannes Palais des Festival, a tsunami hasn't engulfed the festival-goers. I say this because, on the eve of this year's edition, an obscure X account threw 10 famous men from French cinema to the wolves, promising they would be burnt at the stake for their sexual violence.

What counts is not this false list itself, initially and equally falsely attributed to Mediapart, which was forced to disclaim it, but what it says about the poison that has been distilled and what it has produced. Already, media in France and abroad have reported on the rumor with varying degrees of ambiguity. In France, controversial television host Cyril Hanouna declared that "practically all French cinema" was affected. Following his remark, he let commentator Gilles Verdez have his say: "If this list of 10 names comes out (...), it's the end of French cinema, the end of the Cannes Festival." Hanouna concluded, "in the end, we don't know what it's all about." Obviously.

The French film industry, which is quick to express indignation, has not yet reacted to this outrageous moment. What's more, Hanouna is the protégé of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, head of Canal+, a channel that largely finances French cinema.

What did happen, according to French daily Le Parisien on May 11 and weekly La Tribune Dimanche on May 12, were meetings in Cannes or elsewhere, run by public relations agencies specialized in crisis management. How on-edge people must be for a minuscule rumor, without a shred of evidence, to manage to overhaul things to such an extent.

Impressive string of successes

The rumor hasn't detracted from a recurring theme on far-right websites accusing French cinema of being fueled by public money and creating leftist films. It has done nothing for the #MeToo movement, whose members find themselves compared to executioners. And it blurs the issue of sexual violence in cinema, an issue that several newspapers (Elle, Télérama, Libération) have just added to with investigations and testimonials implicating celebrities.

On May 15, Le Monde published four exceptional pages in which 100 public figures, mostly women, posed in groups for a series of photos taken by Sonia Sieff. The shooting was to mark their call for an "all-encompassing law" against sexual violence. The images can be seen as a tribute to the American photographer Richard Avedon and his brilliant 1969 portrait of anti-Vietnam War activists, the Chicago Seven. In the same way that Avedon's work visually translates the strength of the collective in a political struggle, #MeToo is a collective response to isolated assaults.

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