French newspaper Liberation on Tuesday expressed “profound regret” over a furore triggered by its decision to publish a letter from a rapist to his victim that was flagged on its cover on International Women’s Day. “I raped you, Alma”. Letter from an attacker to his victim,” read a front-page headline in the left-wing daily on Monday, alongside a drawing of a man forcing himself on a woman.
The letter, published in full on page 14, was from a student in political science in the western city of Bordeaux who admitted to raping his then girlfriend and fellow student, Alma, in 2019.
Liberation initially defended publishing the letter, saying it “aims to interrogate us and take us out of our comfort zone whereby the rapist, the monster, is the other.”
But on Tuesday, it admitted to “several blunders” and expressed its “deep regret” towards those who felt the paper was “downplaying something that we intended to denounce.”
Alma was the first of several students at…
