Gérard Depardieu: Rogue Star

A history of sexual assault has caught up with the French actor as a Paris court finds him guilty

CAN ONE SEPARATE the man from the maestro, the art from the artist? It’s an issue that comes up every time a great artist is discovered to be a monster, whether it is Roman Polanski or Woody Allen. The noise around Gérard Depardieu, one of cinema’s greatest actors, has always been loud, especially since TIME magazine in 1991 translated a French interview from 1978 where he said he had participated in rapes since he was nine years old. The man who has played iconic characters like Danon and Cyrano de Bergerac, and for many years was France’s man in Hollywood, has been accused by several women of sexual assault.

After years of dodging and denouncing the accusations, Depardieu was finally found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021. This is the first time Depardieu has stood trial for sexual assault, though several other women have made similar allegations in the media. On screen, when he is not playing beloved figures like Obelix, he has shown more than a flash of misogyny, especially in movies such as Bertrand Blier’s shocking Going Places (1974). Being brutish came naturally to Depardieu who grew up rough but his talent in transforming himself, usually into tragic heroes, was sublime.

It is what got him the support of many French women as well, who considered MeToo to be an American obstruction. Genius should be allowed the liberty to indulge in excess was the considered view in France, but the rise of younger women who are now speaking out strongly about past abuse cannot be ignored. Depardieu may think he is a victim of the times we live in, but that is a common perception for someone who has been a lifelong aggressor. (By Kaveree Bamzai)

Noisemaker: Vijay Shah
The Wages of Impudence

Madhya Pradesh minister Vijay Shah got everything wrong when he made a highly inappropriate reference to Army spokesperson Colonel Sophiya Qureshi. All hell broke loose and everyone including BJP descended on him like a tonne of bricks. Shah apologised but the high court has ordered the filing of an FIR against him. An object lesson in thinking before speaking.

The Big Picture

New Delhi, May 13, 2025: National Rally The Shaurya Samman Yatra from Kartavya Path to the National War Memorial near India Gate expressed solidarity with the Indian armed forces for their bravery and success in Operation Sindoor.

Ideas
Turnaround

YES Bank was corporate India’s cautionary tale. An ambitious and aggressive bank, run by a flamboyant CEO, that became a market darling, only for everything to come crashing down when it was discovered that the bank had been under-reporting bad loans, and which eventually had to be rescued by the State Bank of India (SBI) and other investors. So many years since its debacle, its turnaround is now here. The Japanese banking giant Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation (SMBC), in what is being described as the largest cross-border investment in an Indian bank, is acquiring a 20 per cent stake in the bank. SMBC is spending a total of $1.58bn to buy 13.19 per cent stake from SBI and 6.81 per cent from other bank shareholders which will make SMBC the single-largest shareholder in YES Bank. According to reports, SMBC’s eventual goal is to assume management control of the bank, increasing its stake, once it gets Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) approval, right up to 51 per cent. This investment is the first bit of good news that has emerged from YES Bank ever since a clutch of investors had to pump in money to save it from collapsing. SMBC’s entry however will be watched closely not just for its implications on YES Bank’s future, but also on what it potentially signals about India’s banking landscape as a whole. The Japanese bank’s entry is being seen as signalling a potential change in RBI’s stance that could lead to more involvement of foreign investors in India’s banking sector. Whether or not that happens, to YES Bank, this is its first glimmer of light after a particularly dark tunnel.

Money Mantra
Shock Absorber
The India growth story is compelling despite geopolitical spoilers

IN THE SPACE of four anxious trading sessions, investors had watched the Nifty 50 surrender nearly 2 per cent, the rupee brush its weakest level of the year, and the India VIX climb into territory last occupied during the first Covid lockdowns. By May 12, the India-Pakistan ceasefire news reversed those moves almost as quickly as they had appeared. Yet, the disappearance of the immediate threat does not automatically dictate that an investor should rip up an existing strategy.

Cash flows and balance-sheet resilience can absorb the next unforeseen jolt, whether that comes from a different frontier, a commodity spike, or a policy surprise from Washington or Beijing.

If one trimmed equity exposure or rotated into cash during the shelling, the ceasefire is principally a cue to rebalance back toward one’s long-term asset allocation targets, not an excuse to chase whatever has just rallied the hardest.

The sectors that looked most fragile during the crisis often rebound with surprising force. Airlines and freight operators regain the flight paths and land corridors they had been forced to circumvent, saving both time and fuel costs. Hotel chains, travel platforms and consumer-discretionary companies tethered to sentiment benefit as the ambient noise of alert bulletins recedes and households feel freer to plan holidays or big-ticket purchases.

Export-oriented IT and pharmaceutical firms frequently capture additional upside because a softer rupee driven by capital inflows leverages their foreign-currency revenues, while a lower domestic bond yield backdrop reduces discount rates applied to their long-duration cash-flow streams.

Still, none of these effects should mesmerise an investor into overweighting any single theme; they are tactical ripples on the surface of a much larger structural pond. That pond remains India’s multi-year growth trajectory, powered by rising domestic consumption, continuing formalisation of the economy, and a digital infrastructure that allows companies to scale without importing the overhead costs typical of an earlier manufacturing era. (By Ramesh Singh)

Viral
Metro Kindness

It was a video that showed a day like any other in an Indian metropolis. A mother in Delhi, already struggling with a bottle and a bag, was trying to get her son to sit up straight on the Metro. But as much as she tried, the child kept falling asleep, and falling all over the area. And then a moment of kindness. A middle-aged man, seated beside the boy, witnesses the mother’s struggle, and, instead of expressing displeasure at the situation, as it often happens, puts the mother at ease and allows the child to sleep on his lap instead. At a time when most of our viral videos involving travel in cities are those that feature instances of spats and road rage, this showed something entirely different. It showed the little acts of kindness, the little give and take that takes places daily, which makes our lives in these vast unforgiving cities a bit more bearable. It was lovely moment and it went viral quickly. In just a few days, it had clocked over four million views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gérard DepardieuinvestmentShaurya Samman Yatrastock marketVijay Shah