“Sometimes, I’ll have as many as four boys — from 8 to 14 years old — in my bed at the same time, and I’ll engage in the most exquisite lovemaking with them,” Matzneff wrote in his diaries, “Un Galop d’Enfer,” or “Racing Forward,” published in 1985.

He was invited to the Élysée Palace by President François Mitterrand and socialized with the far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen. He benefited from the largess of the fashion designer Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, the business tycoon Pierre Bergé.

But Mr. Matzneff has been summoned to appear in a Paris court on Wednesday, accused of actively promoting pedophilia through his books. Mr. Matzneff could face up to five years in prison, yet the case is also an implicit indictment of an elite that furthered his career and swatted away isolated voices calling for his arrest.

In a widening investigation, prosecutors announced Tuesday morning that the police would start seeking witnesses to find other possible victims of Matzneff.

Late President Mitterand was an admirer

President Mitterrand socialized with the up-and-coming author and remained an admirer, even after Mr. Matzneff published a full-throated defense of pedophilia in 1974 titled “Les Moins de Seize Ans” (“Under 16 Years Old”).

After he became president in 1981, Mr. Mitterrand invited Mr. Matzneff for lunch at the presidential palace at least once, in 1984, according to the François Mitterrand Institute.

The president also wrote a laudatory article for a small literary magazine, Matulu, that devoted a special issue in July 1986 to Mr. Matzneff. Describing Mr. Matzneff as an “impenitent seducer,” Mr. Mitterrand wrote that the author “has always amazed me with his extreme taste for rigor and with the depth of his thinking.”

The scandal began last month when Vanessa Springora, one of Matzneff victims, who was groomed and sexually exploited by him when she was 14, published a book about her experience that hit a nerve in France post-Epstein. (Remember, Epstein owned a flat in Paris, and had ties to the French elites).

It was called the "#MeToo of the French publishing world", and let to a Twitter storm, calling out Matzneff, his enablers, and other members of the French elite who openly promoted pedophilia (like our old pal Daniel Cohn-Bendit).

Mr. Matzneff’s fall, if late in coming, was swift. His three publishers dropped him. The head of the National Book Center said that Mr. Matzneff would lose a prestigious, seldom-awarded lifetime stipend. The Culture Ministry is re-examining two state honors conferred on him in the mid-1990s. He lost his column in the magazine Le Point.

Last month, suddenly emboldened, prosecutors raided the headquarters of Gallimard, a prestigious publishing house, to seize copies of the books. In the case scheduled to start on Wednesday, Mr. Matzneff’s publishers and promoters could also be held to account — with the books as evidence.

Matzneff has been in hiding in Italy full of self-pity (of course /s) since the end of December.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/11/world/europe/gabriel-matzneff-pedophilia-france.html (edited by OP)