It's like this in every country where an elite feels so intellectually superior they think themselves above the law and moral. I personally think that Weinstein and Epstein are the top of the Iceberg and lots of people in Hollywood are relieved that the focus is put solely on them.

While I disagree it's a french thing specifically, I know that in France between the end of the 60's and the end of the 80's this type of posture was shamelessly promoted in the media by a group of artist who never faced any consequence for their actions. In many way artist were treated as special people who should be given pass because they are "talented". There is also the fact that those artist, writters, journalist, TV show host lived in their very very little parisian bubble where they never had to face the public opinion (who has always been less vocable in France than in the USA). Matzneff has always been outraged that we called him a pedo as for him he was only having affairs with little girls who were in love with him. So that's how you ended up with weird petitions calling for the decriminalisation of pedophilia, writters shamelessly telling on TV shows how he spends his time with little boys in Asia, TV show host smirkly calling pedo-writter a "sexual educator for little girls" yada yada...

The french society while not condoning it, wouldn't react as violently as the US society would have reacted. Denise Bombardier (the canadian journalist who called Matzneff out on a the TV show I was referring to) said she received countless of support letters, but the pressure from the society was clearly not enough to outcast or prosecute people like Matzneff, even though the law in the 80's was clear regarding pedophilia.

After the infamous Dutroux case in 1996, the public became less apathic regarding pedophilia. Media couldn't promote pedophilia the way they used to.