The French actor Gérard Depardieu on Monday appeared earlier than a Paris court docket the place he faces two fees of sexually assaulting two girls engaged on the set of a movie by which he was starring.
The trial would be the first time Mr. Depardieu has been compelled to reply in court docket to accusations of groping, sexual assault and harassment, and rape which have piled up towards him for years, and which he has denied.
The fees on this trial got here after two girls on the set of “Les Volets Verts,” a film by the French director Jean Becker that was launched in 2022, filed police complaints that he had groped their genitals, buttocks and breasts. If discovered responsible, Mr. Depardieu faces as much as 5 years in jail and a positive of 75,000 euros, or about $81,000.
Mr. Depardieu has denied all accusations within the case being dropped at trial Monday. His lawyer, Jérémie Assous, known as them “completely false and unrealistic.”
The trial was scheduled for final October, however was postponed after Mr. Depardieu didn’t seem for well being causes. Mr. Assous introduced medical assessments that confirmed Mr. Depardieu suffered from long-term diabetes and coronary heart issues after present process a quadruple bypass, and that anxiousness from the trial had worsened his circumstances.
For a lot of, the case represents a breakthrough for the #MeToo motion in France, which was stalled for years, notably within the movie trade.
Thought of essentially the most well-known and highly effective actor France has produced in generations, Mr. Depardieu, now 76, has dominated the French display for many years, showing in additional than 230 movies, together with “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
“He’s really an artist, on a par with administrators, given his aura,” stated Geneviève Sellier, the creator of “The Cult of the Auteur,” a ebook about sexual abuse in a section of the film trade. “So the truth that Depardieu was charged, and goes to trial, signifies that any longer the artist in France is now not above the legislation.”
Whereas the #MeToo motion toppled scores of powerful men in Hollywood nearly instantly after it began in 2017, in France its introduction was considered suspiciously by some as a puritanical American import that was tainting a necessary a part of France’s mental and cultural id.
The motion has introduced some small structural adjustments to the cinema trade, together with obligatory coaching for producers in stopping sexual violence on units if motion pictures are to obtain vital authorities subsidies. Nevertheless it has in any other case confronted sturdy resistance from a sector that’s thought of close to sacred in France and run largely by males.
“Up till now, the French establishments of the cinema lined up all these excesses,” Ms. Sellier stated. “All these establishments are run by males — who’re immovable and who’ve turned a blind eye to those abuses for so long as potential.”
In latest months, nonetheless, a lot of instances have gone to trial and resulted in convictions. Final fall, the movie director and actor Nicolas Bedos was convicted of sexually assaulting two girls in 2023 and sentenced to one year in prison, which was diminished to 6 months of home arrest with digital surveillance.
Final month, a French court convicted the director Christophe Ruggia of sexually assaulting the actress Adèle Haenel when she was a minor, handing him a four-year sentence — two years beneath home arrest and the remaining suspended. Mr. Ruggia has appealed the ruling.
It’s too quickly to find out if the rulings sign a shift for #MeToo in French cinema, stated Marie Lemarchand, an actress who’s a member of the Affiliation of Actors and Actresses, which was fashioned in 2021 to foyer for adjustments within the trade.
“However symbolically, it’s very highly effective, as a result of these individuals who filed complaints have been acknowledged as victims,” Ms. Lemarchand stated.
The primary allegations towards Mr. Depardieu within the #MeToo period arose in 2018, when a younger aspiring actress, Charlotte Arnould, instructed the police that the actor raped her twice when she was 22.
An investigation into these allegations was dropped, then later picked up once more in 2020 and is continuous, in accordance with the Paris prosecutor’s workplace.
After Ms. Arnould stepped ahead publicly, others adopted.
No less than three investigations into allegations of sexual assault and rape towards Mr. Depardieu, introduced by French actresses and a Spanish journalist, have been launched. Two have been dropped as a result of they have been previous the statute of limitations.
Mr. Depardieu has known as all of the accusations false and the media protection a “lynching.” In 2023, he wrote in the conservative daily Le Figaro that he may be “provocative, overflowing, generally impolite” however that he had “by no means, ever abused a girl.”
Many distinguished individuals have rushed to Mr. Depardieu’s protection. Most notable amongst them is President Emmanuel Macron of France, who condemned what he known as a “manhunt” towards the actor, who he stated “makes France proud.”
“There’s all the time this safety of males’s honor,” stated Ms. Lemarchand, noting that Mr. Depardieu had been nurtured by a system that at finest ignored sexual abuse and violence and at worst promoted it.
However, there was a hazard in singling out Mr. Depardieu as a “monster,” she stated. “He can’t be separated from the remainder of the occupation, the atmosphere by which we work,” she stated, nor “from the remainder of what our society values.”
The trial is scheduled to final two days however may very well be prolonged as a result of the court docket’s medical skilled has stated that Mr. Depardieu’s well being permitted him to attend for not more than six hours at a time, his lawyer stated.
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris
