PARIS (AP) — Women’s rights activists criticized French President Emmanuel Macron on Thursday for appearing to take sides with actor Gérard Depardieu by saying the film star who is facing sexual misconduct allegations “makes France proud.”

Speaking Wednesday night on TV channel France 5, Macron described himself as a “big admirer” of a “great actor.” Macron added: “He makes France proud.”

Macron’s comments in a televised interview come after a documentary that aired earlier this month said 16 women have accused Depardieu of harassing, groping or sexually assaulting them. The France-2 report also showed the actor making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea.

They also come as a Spanish journalist and writer recently filed a complaint against Depardieu, who she says sexually abused her during an interview in Paris in 1995, Spanish police said Thursday.

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Asked about the latest accusations against Depardieu, Macron said he believed in the presumption of innocence and the judicial process. “You will never see me participate in a manhunt,” the French leader said.

Macron also criticized his culture minister’s decision to launch a disciplinary procedure concerning Depardieu’s prestigious Order of the Legion of Honor, which could lead the award getting rescinded. He said Culture Minister Rima Abdul-Malak went “a bit too far.”

The Legion of Honor is not “a moral tool” and should not be removed “based on a documentary,” Macron said.

Depardieu, 74, was put under investigation in December 2020 for rape and sexual assault following allegations in 2018 from actor Charlotte Arnould, who said the crimes took place at Depardieu’s home. The investigation is ongoing.

Journalist and writer Ruth Baza filed a complaint last week in the southern city of Torremolinos that the Spanish police said will now be conveyed to French authorities.

Baza, 51, told Barcelona’s La Vanguardia newspaper this week that when she was 23, she interviewed the actor in Paris for the magazine Cinemanía. The daily said that in her police complaint, Baza told how the actor kissed her face and neck, and fingered her between the legs, behavior she said that police have classified as rape.

Baza said she had buried the matter in her mind but that it all came back to her last April when she read about accusations made by 13 women against Depardieu.

Another complaint was filed in France in September by comedian Helene Darras for alleged sexual assault. Darras accused Depardieu of touching her bottom when she was a young extra for the 2008 film “Disco.”

Women rights activists on Thursday vigorously denounced Macron’s comments.

Michelle Dayan, president of Lawyers 4 Women, said that as a lawyer and a citizen, she also believed strongly in the presumption of innocence. “Yet it mustn’t be used as a pretext not to listen to women who say they are victims of abuses,” she said.

Speaking on France Info news broadcaster, Dayan said “violence against women starts there … in the image of women that is conveyed” through Depardieu’s shocking remarks.

Activist group Osez le feminisme denounced on X, formerly Twitter, “one more confirmation that, definitively, Emmanuel Macron doesn’t live in the same world as us.”

“We, the prey, are facing a man (Depardieu) who describes himself as a ‘great hunter,’ yet who, in the words of the president, becomes the victim of a ‘manhunt’,” the group posted.

Anne-Cécile Mailfert, president of the Women’s Foundation, said on BFM TV that Macron’s comments were “very serious” because “he is judging women who filed a complaint, women who spoke out … He’s taking sides.”

Former French President Francois Hollande also chimed in to counter his successor.

“No, we are not proud,” Hollande said on the France Inter radio network.

What was expected from the president was to “speak about women” who see in Depardieu’s remarks “violence, domination and contempt,” he said.

In October, Depardieu published an open letter in the French newspaper Le Figaro that said, “I want to tell you the truth. I have never, ever abused a woman.”

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Associated Press writer Ciaran Giles in Madrid contributed to this report.

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