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 Women's Aid
UK based pressure group campaigning on issues of domestic viloence against women |
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Amen
Irish support and information service for male victims of domestic violence |
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European Commission
Campaign to raise awareness of violence against women |
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Anxiety Stay cool - the experts have it under control
[08/26/2002] |
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 Indicates premium content |
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E-mail your letter to the editor
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Posted Monday, August 4, 2003; 18.25 BST
Marie Trintignant was just 4 years old when she began her dramatic career. For the dark-haired French girl, the 1967 film Mon Amour, Mon Amour was a family affair starring her actor father, Jean-Louis Trintignant, and directed by her mother, Nadine. Last Friday, her family came together in grief. In a private clinic in Neuilly-sur-Seine, a chic western suburb of Paris, the actress died, at 41, from injuries sustained five days earlier in a dispute with the latest love in her varied romantic life — Bertrand Cantat, 39, lead singer and guitarist with Noir Désir (Black Desire), France's most popular rock group. Comatose, her skull cracked and her brain swollen from cerebral hemorrhaging, Trintignant was flown home on Thursday from Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, to die on French soil. In Vilnius, Trintignant's mother had been directing her in a TV film on the life of the French author Colette, a writer whose main themes were the joys and pains of love and female sexuality in a male-dominated world.
"She was in a rush, and she told me that she was off to see her love," an extra on the film set told the French daily Le Monde. "That was the last thing she said to me." Cantat, who is being held while Lithuanian police continue their investigation into possible manslaughter charges, went before a court in Vilnius on Thursday to give his version of events. "It was an accident after a struggle and craziness, but not a crime," he testified. (Cantat himself was hospitalized after the incident, treated for alcohol poisoning and a suspected drug overdose. He also had a bruised hand.) While police in Vilnius try to determine whether the actress, who had four sons, was beaten in the couple's hotel room — as her family alleges — or whether she was injured in a fall after being struck or pushed, the Trintignant family has filed a civil complaint in France, accusing Cantat of inflicting "voluntary blows" and of "non-assistance to a person in danger." Le Monde quoted a Cantat lawyer as saying the singer did not immediately realize the gravity of Trintignant's injuries and believed she had fallen asleep. Some hours later, he allegedly became concerned and alerted her brother Vincent — a director's assistant to her mother — who phoned for help.
Marie Trintignant's tragedy, involving stellar names in French cinema and a charismatic, politically outspoken figure on the country's rock music scene, has shocked France. "We are all dreadfully aware of the injustice of a destiny so brutally shattered," said President Jacques Chirac. The death also focused new attention on domestic violence in Europe and brought home two oft-repeated truths: that such violence can occur in any relationship, regardless of age, sex, class, race, culture, income or education; and that statistics only hint at the depths of the problem, since their rise often reflects increased reporting of violence rather than an actual rise in attacks. "This problem is a curse throughout the world, and the E.U. is no exception," says Barbara Helfferich, cabinet officer in charge of equality for the European Commissioner for Employment and Social Affairs, Anna Diamantopoulou. "And stereotypes don't apply."
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