Renowned Russian activist and artist, Petr Pavlensky, has been handed a six-month custodial sentence by a French court due to his involvement in an infamous sex tape scandal, which consequently toppled a political ally of President Macron. Pavlensky, who settled down in France in 2017, will execute his sentence outside of prison by wearing an electronic tag.
His partner has received a six-month suspended sentence. The scandal unfolded when they broadcasted a video that tarnished the reputation of Benjamin Griveaux, dismantling his mayoral candidacy for Paris in 2020. Both Pavlensky and his partner have been instructed to compensate Mr. Griveaux with a sum of €15,000 (£12,950) in damages in addition to €5,000 for covering his legal expenses.
In 2018, Alexandra de Taddeo, Pavlensky’s partner, indulged in a romance with Mr. Griveaux. In 2020, a video surfaced online, accompanied by screenshots of exchanged messages between the duo as well as a video of a man engaging in a sexual act with a young woman. Post the video’s public release, Ms. Taddeo faced arrest on the accounts of infringing privacy and propagating personal imagery without acquired consent. Pavlensky confessed to be the individual who disseminated the controversial video.
Mr. Griveaux, who once prominently featured in President Emmanuel Macron’s ruling party, had intended to pursue the mayoral seat in Paris prior to the emergence of the explicit video. Nearly three and a half years following the incident, Griveaux has retired from politics and chose not to attend the trial. His attorney, Richard Malka, expressed to the local press that while Griveaux was content with the justice served, the damages the incident had caused him were irreversible.
Several political figures voiced their disapproval of Pavlensky’s actions at that time. Anne Hidalgo, the former Mayor of Paris, opined that individuals’ private affairs should be respected. Jean-Luc Melenchon, the far-left leader, branded the video’s revelation as repugnant. The far-right leader, Marine Le Pen, suggested that Mr. Griveaux ought not to have stepped aside.
This isn’t Pavlensky’s first conviction. In 2019, he was subjected to a three-year long sentence, with the provision to suspend two of those years, owing to his act of setting afire a Parisian bank. Pavlensky gained notoriety for his audacious act of pinning his scrotum to Moscow’s Red Square in 2013.
Pavlensky insisted that both the sex tape scandal and his scrotum act were components of his artwork entitled ‘Pornopolitics’. Exiting the courtroom post-trial, he expressed that he did not intend to disagree with the judge’s ruling. He stated that his ‘Pornopolitics’ artwork had reached its conclusion, given that the court’s conviction marked the final aspect of his artistic work.
