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Reuters Press Agency - Sept. 2, 1997
Actress Catherine Deneuve Urges Curbs On Press Bosses
Deneuve urged tougher laws against printing "paparazzi" pictures Tuesday, saying publishers were responsible for the hunt for images of the rich and famous.
Shocked by the car crash that killed Princess Diana and her companion Dodi Al Fayed, Deneuve said photographers who stalk personalities were "only the dogs of war."
"The press bosses are the ones who are responsible," she told the Paris daily Liberation.
Noting that France already had strict laws protecting the private lives of public figures, she called for tougher legislation to choke off the trade in stolen snapshots.
"Unfortunately, we must go further, to the source of the problem, to prevent their publication," she said. "It's sad to ask for suppression of the freedom of the press.
But one cannot call that the press."
"The photographers are only the dogs of war," she added. "I am very aggressive toward them, but they are not the ones who are responsible. I think it's terrible that they should be put in custody like hostages one wants to shoot."
Deneuve said the high-speed car crash that killed Diana early Sunday might finally lead to tougher measures against the popular press, saying: "One needs an accident like this to put an end to a certain kind of press."
Deneuve said she had been harassed by paparazzi for years but had not been subjected to the same unrelenting pressure as Diana.
"She was the most harassed person in the world," she said of the princess. "There was no private life left."
Deneuve recalled once losing control while being chased by photographers. "I cracked, I threw the car in reverse and demolished their car."
When she gave birth to a daughter fathered by Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni in 1973, Italian paparazzi rented rooms across from the clinic to snap the first pictures of the two with the child, she said.
"A guy who harasses you knows everything about your life -- the address of your pediatrician, of your parents, of your friends," she said. "It's not only the photo, it's the surveillance and the control."
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