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VILNIUS PRISON LITHUANIA
SEPTEMBER 2004 6 MONTHS AFTER THE TRIAL
Bertrand Cantat is due to be transferred to a French prison
in the next few weeks.
Lithuania has just given the green light.
Bertrand Cantat arrived in Lithuania as a normal passenger.
A year and a half later, he returns as a prisoner.
Cantat will serve the rest of his sentence in France.
Bertrand Cantat is back in France.
The Noir Désir singer has been transferred to a prison south of Toulouse.
Here, Kristina Rady, the singer's wife, continues to support him.
If you want him to be able to rebuild his life,
you need to leave him alone, and us too.
TRINTIGNANT FAMILY'S LAWYER
Kristina Rady is a key character in this story.
FORMER PARTNER
Kristina Rady…
She was a champion for him.
But I would never blame her because he was the father of her children.
She was protecting her children.
And I'd never blame her for…
hiding certain truths.
In fact, Kristina Rady is the reason I started looking into Bertrand Cantat.
What I discovered is shocking.
JOURNALIST
Bertrand is crazy.
Terrible things have happened.
Kristina Rady's story is as awful and sad as Marie Trintignant's.
In fact, there wasn't one Cantat case,
but several Cantat cases.
FROM ROCK STAR TO KILLER
EPISODE 3 THE CANTAT CURSE
MURET DETENTION CENTER
SEPTEMBER 2007
Bertrand Cantat, convicted of causing the death of Marie Trintignant,
is likely to be granted early release next month.
It's very difficult for the victims to understand
that a sentence can be halved.
If you don't give a prisoner this chance,
then prison becomes nothing more than a place to break people.
This man is the sentence enforcement judge at the Muret Detention Center.
In a month, he will decide
whether Bertrand Cantat will get conditional release.
FORMER SENTENCE ENFORCEMENT JUDGE
Bertrand Cantat,
he has served four years in prison.
He makes a conditional release request, which is then examined.
I examine it at a hearing in September.
He presents his file with his wife, Kristina Rady, by his side.
During the meeting, he is a bit like a slow teenager, he's daydreaming a bit.
And she's taking notes in a little notebook.
"What needs to get done? When do we file the request?"
"What to do about work, housing?"
I examine it at the hearing. The file is very good.
All the criteria to grant release have been met.
Impeccable behavior in prison.
Good reports following temporary release.
And then, also, because it's an important factor
when releasing someone who has committed a serious crime,
psychiatric and psychological reports that are both very good.
I only saw him once in Muret.
EXPERT PSYCHOLOGIST
When I saw him at that time,
he didn't really fit the category of "violent man."
I think a range of factors led to the tragedy,
due to their respective personalities.
And as far as I could tell,
no one had complained about Bertrand Cantat being violent.
Of course, my decision was reinforced
by the reality that this was a crime of passion.
JUDGMENT PHILIPPE LAFLAQUIÈRE
CRIME OF PASSION
It's a crime that took place
in the context of passionate love and a great deal of excess.
So, there is no fear, at first glance, that it will happen again.
It's the sentence enforcement judge who decides.
FORMER DIRECTOR OF CRIME SQUAD
I'm not one to criticize a court decision, but, again, there seems to be
a certain leniency for a crime of passion,
which, again, is incomprehensible to me.
I think the idea is to say that he won't do it again,
that someone who killed his wife won't do it again.
Since she's dead, he can't kill her again.
Let's say that he's not likely to reoffend like some sexual predators
or people who are pathologically violent.
Are we really sure that someone who is capable of killing his wife
won't do it again?
I'm not completely sure.
Tonight, singer Bertrand Cantat left the Muret prison in Haute-Garonne.
The sentence enforcement judge accepted his request for conditional release
after four years in prison.
Bertrand Cantat will have served half of his eight-year sentence
after Marie Trintignant's death.
His family and friends gathered at the singer's house.
When I learn that Cantat was released from prison,
I tell myself, "A woman's life isn't worth much."
ACTRESS AND MARIE'S FRIEND
I don't think four years is very long.
And the message that it sends…
JOURNALIST
…is that it's not a big deal.
It's not a murder.
Four years in prison for murder…
I think there's a mismatch.
Bertrand Cantat is no longer a prisoner.
He's a free man, more or less,
because the singer would still like to be free of media pressure.
The band's drummer is acting as his spokesman.
Today, he is free, following a decision from the court
that would have been the same for any prisoner.
Honestly, he just wants to be left alone.
-Okay… -Thanks a lot, Denis.
In fact, one of the factors that played in favor of Bertrand Cantat's release
is that he went to live with his wife, Kristina Rady.
When I released him, I knew that the family unit would be back together.
He's a man who killed a woman
who is being sent back to live with another woman.
Please leave a message.
Hi, Mom. Hi, Dad. It's Kristina.
Terrible things have happened.
It's impossible for me to get out of this situation safely.
2 YEARS AFTER BERTRAND CANTAT'S RELEASE
At the time, Bertrand Cantat and Kristina Rady
were officially living together, except they had their own lives.
Kristina lived alone with her children.
KRISTINA RADY'S AU PAIR
At the time, I no longer believed in love, in love at first sight…
And then it came out of nowhere.
KRISTINA RADY'S FORMER PARTNER
My first impression of her was that I thought she was beautiful,
smiley, really likeable.
What made me laugh is she arrived later than I did.
I was an hour late, and she was an hour and five minutes late.
The waiter arrived and asked her what she'd like,
and she said, "Same as him."
Without even knowing what I'd ordered.
And then, I don't know, things went from there.
It was… love at first sight for both of us,
and the rest of the time we had, we spent it together.
TODAY 16:20
KRISTINA - ALL I SEE IS YOU, EVERYWHERE, ALL I THINK ABOUT IS YOU, ALL THE TIME.
Things happened very fast.
Soon after,
I asked to see her with her children, to see how that would go.
I took his toy.
From the moment he knew Kristina was in love with me,
and we were in love,
that's when he started sending me emails,
harassing me on the phone
and guilt-tripping Kristina.
The relationship with Kristina would become very fragile and complicated.
She and I sent each other a lot of texts.
Talking was complicated.
She told me he controlled everything.
Always on her case, wanting to know what she was doing.
On several occasions, she told me
that if he found the texts, her life was at risk.
She was scared.
She was scared of him.
KRISTINA I BEG YOU, DON'T CALL ME
IF HE FINDS OUT THAT YOU HAVE MY NUMBER, MY LIFE WILL BE OVER.
Bertrand threatened to kill himself if she left him.
KRISTINA RADY'S MOTHER
My daughter told me everything.
All four of them were at the table,
and he cut his arm with a knife.
He's not well.
Bertrand is crazy.
We listened to the message.
We were stunned.
We didn't want to believe our ears.
He's created a nightmare out of what he calls love.
Yesterday, I almost died.
I couldn't breathe because I was so scared.
It was shocking. We tried to call.
But Bertrand didn't answer,
and we couldn't reach anyone.
I told my husband to call the police in Bordeaux
because he speaks a bit of French,
so they could check what was happening at their house.
But Kristina didn't want to report him.
Showing evidence won't help because Bertrand will kill himself
and the children will be orphans.
It's impossible for me to get out of this situation safely.
JANUARY 10, 2010 SIX MONTHS AFTER THE MESSAGE
As a police officer, as a cop,
of course I remember this landmark case.
FORMER POLICE CHIEF
It was a calm Sunday.
At around midday, we got a call
from a young boy saying that he had found his mother hanging.
I remember my colleagues who went to the scene.
The man of the house introduced himself as Bertrand Cantat.
The child who called emergency services… was called Milo.
He was 12.
When he got home at midday, he noticed that his father was asleep.
And then, he went upstairs, and there he found the scene,
which we know… was horrible for him to see, of course.
He went back downstairs very quickly, alerted his dad,
who told him that it must be a prank.
"But Mom was all white. Mom is hanging upstairs."
And there, on a table, was a notebook with some writing in it.
HELLO AND GOODBYE! I HAVE KILLED MYSELF
I cried continuously for months and months. Really.
Without stopping.
Frankly, I didn't understand.
FORMER NOIR DÉSIR TOUR MANAGER
She loved her children so much. It's unbelievable.
Like Marie, she was young, full of life, with a great future ahead of her.
Once again, it was…
a life shattered.
I remember, one day, Kristina came to talk to me in the street.
She wanted to tell me something. And I didn't…
I didn't pick up on it.
She wasn't doing well.
I feel very guilty. Extremely guilty.
Her suicide is hard to understand.
She's a fighter. Something terrible must have happened.
It's unbelievable.
Because to me, she wasn't depressed. She was radiant.
Bertrand Cantat is at the center of a new tragedy
after the suicide yesterday of his former partner,
Kristina Rady, in Bordeaux.
Kristina Rady was 41. She reportedly killed herself at home.
An autopsy is in progress.
I had many questions at that time.
I didn't understand Kristina Rady's suicide.
I didn't understand her relationship with Bertrand Cantat.
And I wanted to know what really happened.
We should point out that the letter left by Kristina was two pages long.
I KILLED MYSELF BECAUSE OF MY INABILITY!
She mentions people she's obviously become angry with over time.
And she also blames, in a certain way, her husband, Bertrand,
THANKS TO BERTRAND'S SHOUTING AND ACCUSATIONS
saying that he believes he is "the sole keeper of pain, dot dot dot."
There are no other indications that explain what happened between them.
And Kristina Rady doesn't explicitly name any particular person
as the reason why, specifically, she killed herself.
"Thanks to Bertrand's incessant shouting and accusations, sole keeper of pain."
He's not the only person that she names in this letter, however,
she names him as one of the causes that may have led to her suicide.
Kristina Rady hanged herself in the family home
while he slept.
We could say that Cantat is always asleep when his partners die.
NATIONAL POLICE
Just after the suicide,
Bertrand Cantat left with the police to be interviewed.
He didn't hide from the police the difficult, combative relationship
that he had with Kristina.
He said that he never hit her.
The inquiry finished at the end of the day on Monday.
So, overall, it lasted around 30 hours.
The conclusion was
that Kristina took her own life of her own free will,
as she explained in the letter that she left.
Bertrand Cantat went home a free man. End of story.
I learned there was no investigation. That's extraordinary.
The guy killed a woman,
the mother of his children kills herself above him,
in the same house,
and there's no investigation.
The police think that's normal, natural.
Really? Okay.
It's important for me to remain anonymous as this concerns medical confidentiality.
I work as a temporary worker in the emergency room
in a hospital in the Bordeaux region.
One day, I needed to search for some data about a patient
in their medical history, so I went down to the archives.
While looking for this patient's file,
I found a file for someone named Rady, Kristina.
I was curious, so I opened it.
And I read it. Quickly, but I read it.
In this file,
it was mentioned that Kristina Rady had gone to the emergency room
to report some injuries after an altercation with her partner.
A violent dispute.
The doctor noted that Kristina Rady had a scalp detachment, bruises, hematomas.
The fact that a scalp detachment was mentioned
very probably means that Kristina Rady had been very violently grabbed
by the hair, or dragged by the hair.
We can imagine a very violent scene.
It mentioned this wasn't the first time.
And during observations, it was noted Kristina Rady cried a lot,
but she didn't want to file a report, in order to protect her two children.
And I remember that these events took place after Vilnius,
when Bertrand Cantat went back to the family home.
So there's a file that proves
Bertrand Cantat was violent after leaving prison.
It was a bombshell,
because at that time, Bertrand Cantat was still on conditional release.
So if Kristina Rady had spoken out,
he probably would have been sent back to prison.
But she went home, back to Bertrand Cantat.
After she died, I remember…
that I immediately said…
"It's because of him."
"I hope that this time, the media realizes it."
KRISTINA RADY TO DIE OF LOVE
SHE SUFFERED FROM DEPRESSION
Again, the media in France
painted him as a victim.
THE CANTAT CURSE
People felt sorry for him.
GOODBYE TO THE WOMAN HE LOVED
THE SINGER APPEARED DEVASTATED AT HIS PARTNER'S BURIAL.
A NEW TRAGEDY IN THE LIFE OF THE NOIR DÉSIR SINGER
And I remember saying to myself,
"He loses a first love. He loses a second love."
"This man has no luck." I didn't look any further.
No one in the press tries to understand why Kristina Rady killed herself.
CRESTFALLEN, HE EMBRACED HIS LOVED ONES
Even though the message that she left her parents,
in which she talked about Bertrand Cantat's violence,
was leaked in several newspapers.
YESTERDAY I ALMOST LOST A TOOTH, HE HIT ME,
MY ELBOW IS COMPLETELY SWOLLEN
After Kristina Rady's death,
the media looked into how she'd also been a victim of violence.
FORMER CEO - UNIVERSAL MUSIC FRANCE
I don't care about that.
I have nothing to say about that. I don't know anything.
An artist's private life doesn't concern me. I'm a record label.
I can talk to you about the professional side,
but I don't know anything about what went on privately.
So, despite all that,
Bertrand Cantat's image remained intact because since Marie Trintignant's death,
the press campaigns had been favorable to him.
THE ONLY PHOTOS
When he was in prison, some newspapers described him as a model prisoner
who was very slowly getting back into music.
ROCK GROUP
Above all, during his incarceration,
Noir Désir received a music award for the best musical DVD of the year.
As you can imagine,
this is very special.
And their album sales exploded.
There was an uptick after the case,
an approximately four or five-fold increase.
While he was in prison, Bertrand Cantat signed a new contract
with the record label Universal.
Talented artists like Noir Désir are rare.
So, at some point, yes, as a record label, you hope they'll make a new album.
CANTAT'S AUDIENCE IS STILL HERE!
When you're a true fan of a band, you stay a fan.
The way he sings, the lyrics move me.
What he did, it's his life and…
BERTRAND'S BACK! WE LOVE YOU!
We're all waiting to find out where they are and what they'll give us.
HOW GREAT! - SO HAPPY!
The group might get back together.
Or not.
NOVEMBER 2010 11 MONTHS AFTER KRISTINA RADY'S SUICIDE
We learned today that Noir Désir are splitting up.
Noir Désir is over. The French rock band is…
The guitarist left,
mentioning disagreements with Bertrand Cantat
and a feeling of indecency about the band's situation.
That's it. It's over.
We were of course disappointed.
We didn't know when or if the band would start touring again.
Are they going to tour again?
There was too much pain.
For everyone.
So no, they couldn't do it. They couldn't do it anymore.
What I would have loved is to never hear anyone talk about the guy again.
That's all.
Unfortunately, that wasn't the case.
The comeback of the week is Bertrand Cantat, formerly of Noir Désir,
who, 12 years after the band's last album,
has made his return under the name Detroit.
I remember, La Cigale was packed.
He sang his new songs
and, of course, the big Noir Désir hits.
And so Bertrand Cantat triumphed.
The album went platinum, he played a sold-out concert tour.
And so?
You're appalled? So don't go see him.
The people who want to see him will go see him.
Seeing him again was really something.
-I think we all loved it. -It was heartwarming.
It was great. We're super happy we came.
Who can deny that Bertrand is a great artist?
As for the human side of him, it's…
That's something else. I separate the two, anyway.
These people are just oversensitive. That's how they are.
He doesn't realize the harm it does…
to see his face.
That's it. He doesn't give a damn.
He's above it all, Mister…
"I'm a genius, I…"
He's above it all.
He's a contemptuous guy.
Bertrand Cantat seems untouchable.
And at that time, I knew Kristina Rady had been a victim of violence
at the hands of Bertrand Cantat after he left prison.
Terrible things have happened.
And now what I want to know
is if he was violent with her before Vilnius,
before Marie Trintignant's death.
So I called people in the music industry, people from Bordeaux,
to try to fill in the gaps in the case.
I'm not going to talk to you.
No one would talk to me.
Things are complicated in Bordeaux. There's an omertà about this.
I can't say anything.
And the less people spoke, the more I told myself,
"They're hiding something. This isn't normal."
I have confidentiality clauses
that completely prevent me from speaking directly or indirectly
about the band and its members.
Kristina Rady says in her message that there are witnesses.
There is evidence.
People in the street, our friends, they saw him break everything yesterday.
But nobody talks about it.
After months of struggling, I'm ready to throw in the towel.
And then,
one of the members of Noir Désir agrees to see me, agrees to talk to me.
I meet him in a deserted café,
and he sits next to me.
I ask him if Bertrand Cantat had ever been violent
before Marie Trintignant's death.
He asks me to stop recording.
And then he says,
"Of course Bertrand Cantat was violent with Kristina Rady
before Marie Trintignant's death."
He even gives me the names of two women,
two of his girlfriends,
who had been assaulted before Kristina Rady.
One in 1989.
"Bertrand Cantat tried to strangle her."
"She left."
He also tells me, "He's manipulative and toxic."
He tells me that there was a collective agreement
between Noir Désir and Kristina Rady
to lie and cover up the violent acts of Bertrand Cantat.
And, when you think about it,
you realize that this testimony confirms
that Bertrand Cantat managed to hide his violence from everybody.
The judges, the press…
the police…
In 2003, we heard from his wife, his former partners,
his friends, and, of course, the band.
They all said the same thing,
that Bertrand Cantat was not a violent man.
It feels like we failed.
In any case, we feel like we've not uncovered the full truth.
I knew it. I find it despicable.
These musicians who surrounded and lied for Cantat, to save Cantat,
and especially to save the band, and everything that means,
by also involving Kristina in the lies,
they're pieces of shit.
Yes, I think so.
When I'm getting ready to reveal this,
I'm a bit scared.
Because Bertrand Cantat is still being supported by Universal,
the biggest record label in the world.
In the music industry, he's respected.
Yesterday, Bertrand Cantat appeared with the celebrated duo Amadou and Mariam.
Bertrand Cantat didn't disappoint his fans.
And despite the death of two women, he is still idolized.
In 2017, he was on the cover of Inrocks,
which is the main music magazine in France.
"EMOTIONALLY, I COULDN'T READ, LISTEN."
"Cantat, in his own words."
Yeah, I find it shocking.
He's back on the front page as if nothing happened.
As if we want to rehabilitate him.
That means erasing everything we knew
about his incredible violence.
What's astounding is that in a seven-page interview,
neither Marie Trintignant's nor Kristina Rady's name comes up.
It's always kind of the same. He talks about himself.
There's always this kind of narcissism where he's at the center of everything.
Except that…
11-17 OCTOBER 2017
The Inrockuptibles front page came out in October 2017.
And in October 2017,
what's happening on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean in the USA?
The Weinstein case is exploding.
And that was the trigger for the MeToo wave.
Sexual violence has got to go!
Hey, hey…
With the MeToo movement,
a new generation of feminists emerges
to protest Bertrand Cantat's return to the stage.
Killer! Killer! Killer! Killer! Killer!
This time, society engaged with the subject,
and the debate got heated.
Are you for or against Bertrand Cantat's return?
It's a divisive question.
Fuck off! Fuck off! Fuck off!
What we're witnessing is a form of lynching.
It's not normal for him to be applauded, admired, almost idolized.
And I hate lynching.
He did something awful that he'll live with forever.
You don't kill.
He's paid his debt to society, justice did its job.
I came to see the artist. He interests me.
Beyond the law, there's something called decency.
And that means retiring from public life.
It's not shocking. He's paid his debt. So today, he can go onstage.
Bertrand! Bertrand!
You don't want to discuss it? I just want to discuss it.
When my article comes out…
BERTRAND CANTAT, INVESTIGATION INTO AN OMERTÀ
…women's voices were finally being heard.
But on social media,
there was a wave of very chauvinistic reactions
telling me to shut up, treating me like a hysterical feminist.
A BEAUTIFUL, HYSTERICAL WOMAN
ANNE-SOPHIE JAHN LOOKS LIKE A WHORE
Journalist Anne-Sophie Jahn investigated the Bertrand Cantat case for Le Point.
I'm invited on a show to debate his return to the stage.
And next to me is Éric Dupond-Moretti, who is a famous lawyer.
CAN CANTAT STILL SING?
You have the right to not go and see him, so don't go.
When the cameras are off, he starts promoting his book, saying,
"I don't know anything about the case. I didn't follow it at all."
The cameras switch on and…
-He was convicted of murder. -Not of murder, first of all.
For the blows and injuries leading to her unintended death.
"Murder committed with undetermined indirect intent."
-No. -The word used in the ruling was "murder."
He was convicted for fatal blows.
At that time, he's in the media circus,
but he doesn't realize
that violence against women is a serious subject.
For me, it's not about canceling Bertrand Cantat.
But when people are applauding him onstage,
it feels indecent to me, personally,
and I don't want us to forget Marie Trintignant and Kristina Rady.
An accountant having served his sentence goes back to accounting.
But this is not at all the case with Cantat,
who once again is a politically engaged singer
and who spreads not only a certain style of music
but also certain social ideas,
and that's intolerable.
Then, a few months after the article's published,
Bertrand Cantat sues me for defamation.
COMPLAINANT TRANSCRIPT DISCUSSION OF THE DEFAMATION
He attacks passages in the article
that are strictly quotes from anonymous witnesses.
MANY IN THE BORDEAUX SCENE KNEW BUT THEY REMAINED SILENT
He wanted to know who had spoken out.
It's a way of putting pressure on witnesses to shut them up.
And some executives from the record label are going to call the band members
to ask them to refute the article.
THE RECORD LABEL CALLED ME ASKING ME TO REFUTE
CANTAT CALLED ME ON MY LANDLINE SO I PICKED UP
There was a real operation to stifle the article.
BERTRAND CANTAT INVESTIGATION INTO AN OMERTÀ
In the end, his demands will be rejected,
and… years later,
it's a subject that affects me… personally,
because speaking out is a matter of life and death.
And I tell myself,
"If this story had been told properly, if people close to him had spoken out,
we might've prevented the deaths of two women,
Marie Trintignant and Kristina Rady."
With Marie Trintignant, it was the same thing, the same silence.
It took 15, 20 years for people to understand
that it wasn't a domestic incident,
it wasn't a crime of passion,
that it was a femicide,
a case of extremely serious domestic abuse.
It took me time to understand that.
Did it open people's eyes?
Do you really think that?
When, every day,
women are being beaten up?
It's…
No.
No, the…
No.
Fifteen years after the Cantat-Marie Trintignant case,
in my personal life, I met someone who also turned out to be violent.
And in maybe the first violent episode, the first use of violence I experienced,
we were in a hotel.
I was hit, I was slapped, like in the Cantat case,
and I ran away.
I had a kind of flashback,
and I said to myself, "You'll end up like Marie Trintignant."
"If you stay and don't save yourself, you'll end up like Marie Trintignant."
Marie Trintignant saved me, in a way.
I thought, "If you stay with this guy, you'll die."
I don't want that for my daughters.
I've been through it.
Do you think I'm here because I was beaten up?
No.
The guy who hit me is a buffoon.
He's not my problem.
My problem is that when I went to the police,
they said it was my fault.
Society told me, "You deserved it."
"Look how you dress."
"Look how you talk."
MARIE TRINTIGNANT HAS BECOME A SYMBOL IN THE FIGHT AGAINST DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
THE LAW ON FORCED SUICIDE WAS ENACTED IN 2020,
10 YEARS AFTER KRISTINA RADY'S DEATH.
EVERY YEAR IN FRANCE, ABOUT 100 WOMEN ARE VICTIMS OF FEMICIDE.
ÉVELYNE 69 - HÉLOÏSE 17 SONIA 52- JEANNINE 94
NOÉMIE 21 - SANDY 34 PAULETTE 85 - LOUANE 19
MARIE 90 - EMMA 25 JOSETTE 78 - NASRINE 41
DOMINIQUE 66 CHLOÉ 34 - ANNICK 79
SILENCE STILL KILLS.
BERTRAND CANTAT WAS SENTENCED TO 8 YEARS IN PRISON
IN MARCH 2004, IN LITHUANIA
FOR "MURDER COMMITTED WITH UNDETERMINED INDIRECT INTENT" OF MARIE TRINTIGNANT.
HE WAS NEVER PROSECUTED FOR OTHER ACTS OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN.