No, the former president of France hasn’t confessed to anything, quite the opposite. The title above is just a feeble bilingual pun based on the French word for buttock: fesse.
For it’s that anatomical feature that figures in an accusation of sexual assault allegedly committed by the frisky nonagenarian.
In 2018, when Mr Giscard was 92, he was interviewed by the German reporter Ann-Kathrin Stracke. At some point Miss Stracke asked Mr Giscard to pose for a photo with her, thus paving the way to her eternal victimhood.
According to her filed complaint, “the former president wrapped his arms around her, touched her waist, and placed his hand on her buttock.”
I’d suggest there were two possible ways of dealing with such brutal assault. One was to remove the offending hand; the other, to bring charges.
To her credit, Miss Stracke tried the first course before resorting to the second. She valiantly attempted to remove the ex-president’s hand from her buttock, but he proved too strong. According to her, “I tried to push back the hand of Mr Giscard d’Estaing, without however succeeding.”
Considering the culprit’s age it’s possible that he simply used Miss Stracke’s buttock for support in order to stay upright. Then of course it could have been a nostalgic statement of carnal interest conveyed semiotically. One way or the other, one has to congratulate Mr Giscard on his wrinkled hand still being too strong for a hale 37-year-old woman to dislodge.
Still, hand on buttock or knee, while doubtless constituting brutal assault, is still more nuanced than Joe Biden’s alleged technique. According to his victim’s accusations, he pinned her to the corner, “penetrated her digitally” and said, “I want to f*** you.”
Mr Giscard communicated the same message in a more subtle and less invasive manner, but then he is heir to Gallic subtlety that stands in marked contrast to Anglo-Saxon directness.
On the face of it, Miss Stracke’s case is somewhat weakened by her having waited almost two years to bring the charges. Yet one has to assume she was so deeply traumatised that she had to wait for the shock to subside. That way she was able to assess the damage and decide how deep the trauma was.
This might explain her own explanation: “At first, I didn’t think about filing a complaint, especially since I had no idea how French justice works.” Of course, in our Internet age the requisite information could have been obtained in some 10 minutes, but clearly not by someone in protracted shock.
But then Miss Stracke compromised the purity of her motives by admitting that she was encouraged to act by the growing momentum of the MeToo movement: “This movement has shown me how important it is to debate these issues in society.”
Quite. In fact, it’s hard to think offhand of any issue more important to debate than the odd stray hand on buttock. One might suggest that perhaps there’s a difference between debating and filing criminal charges, but one shouldn’t, on pain of being named as an accomplice.
Anyway, bring charges Miss Stracke did. Yet the culprit refused to admit his guilt, or fess up, if I wish to persist with that puerile pun.
According to Mr Giscard’s spokesman, “If what is alleged against him were true, he would of course be sorry, but he does not remember anything.” The culprit’s age makes this statement eminently believable. A nonagenarian can’t possibly remember every buttock he used as a crutch two years ago.
But seriously now, if I am to retain a modicum of respect for French jurisprudence, I hope the judges will throw out this complaint faster than one could say ‘woke publicity-hogging’.
Miss Stracke ought to build her career on journalism, not the subversive campaign to destroy normal relations between the sexes. Real women, even those blessed with architecturally sound bottoms, used to know how to discourage unwanted attentions.
All it took was a smile, a sweeping move with the hand or, as in Miss Stracke’s case, possibly just a step sideways. That was all part of an eternal game, the give and take of courtship and flirtation.
By mentioning such things in the same breath as real sexual assault, and equating cheekiness with brutality, MeToo ideologues devalue actual rape. Does Miss Stracke feel she deserves to stand side by side with, say, Lara Logan, the CBS reporter assaulted by hundreds of Egyptians who tore her clothes off, ripped her hair out and raped her with their hands and sticks?
I wonder if these modern cretins have in their minds an ideal world they’d like to create. If they do, I certainly wouldn’t want to live in it.
American baseball managers and coaches are noted for giving their players pats on the bee-hind.
Fess Parker. American actor. Played the role of Davy Crockett in those Disney movies. That name Fess caused a lot of chuckles among the French.
Another chuckle was caused by Sean Connery’s surname.