First trial Monday of Gérard Depardieu, accused of sexual assault on two women during the filming of a film in 2021 – Libération

Sexual violence file Indicted for rape and targeted by numerous complaints, actor Gérard Depardieu appears for the first time on Monday in Paris. The actor is accused of sexual assault on two women during filming in 2021.

Will the 75-year-old French cinema giant attend the hearing on Monday, from 1:30 p.m.? “I confirm to you that Gérard Depardieu intends to appear before the court”assures his lawyer, Me Jérémy Assous. “The witnesses and the evidence he will produce will demonstrate that he is only the target of false accusations,” promises Me Assous, for whom “the aim pursued has just been revealed through the requests for compensation: to enrich themselves by 30,000 euros”. One of the two women, a film decorator, filed a complaint in February 2024 for sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults during the filming of the film Green Shutters of Jean Becker in 2021, which resulted in the opening of an investigation.

She denounced facts dating back to September 2021 which allegedly took place in a private mansion in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. According to the account given by this 55-year-old complainant to the investigation site Mediapart, Gérard Depardieu would have during a conversation suddenly shouted that he wanted a “fan” because he could not “even more hard-on” with this heat, then he would have assured he could “make women come without touching them”. An hour later he would have it “caught brutally” as she left the set.

Gérard Depardieu would then have it “blocked by closing her legs on [elle] like a crabthen he would have “kneaded the waist, the stomach, going up to [ses] breasts »she assures. He also allegedly held “obscene remarks” such as “Come touch my big parasol, I’m going to shove it in your pussy.” The actor’s bodyguards then had him “taken away”, she remembered. “He was screaming and laughing to himself. He said to me: “We’ll see each other again, my darling!”

“My client is waiting for justice to establish that Gérard Depardieu is a serial sexual assaulter”hopes his lawyer Me Carine Durrieu Diebolt. “I expect justice to be the same for everyone and that Mr. Depardieu does not benefit from preferential treatment because he is an artist”she added.

“Salaceries from morning to evening”

The actor will also be judged for sexual violence denounced in a complaint by another woman, an assistant director on the same film. This filming also marked the actress Anouk Grinberg, who had mentioned “salaceries” from Gérard Depardieu “from morning to evening”, in an interview with AFP. “When film producers hire Depardieu on a film, they know they are hiring an abuser.” “I always heard [Gérard Depardieu] make sexual, serious remarks”, but his behavior “very, very seriously worse, with the permission of the profession which pays him for that, and which covers his crimes”she castigated.

A figure in French cinema known throughout the world, Gérard Depardieu was accused of identical behavior by around twenty women. The actress Charlotte Arnould was the first to file a complaint. In August, the Paris prosecutor’s office requested a trial for rape and sexual assault against the actor. An investigation is also underway in Paris after the complaint of a former film assistant accusing Gérard Depardieu of sexual assault in 2014. The actress Hélène Darras had also filed a complaint against him for sexual assault but it was closed for prescription. As for the Spanish journalist and writer, Ruth Baza, she accuses Gérard Depardieu of having raped her in 1995.

“Manhunt”

“Never, ever have I abused a woman”for his part assured the actor in an open letter published in le Figaro on October 1, 2023. A few weeks later, in December 2023, Emmanuel Macron shocked feminist associations by welcoming a “huge actor” Who “makes France proud”and denouncing “a manhunt” after the broadcast of a report from Additional Investigation on France 2 during which the actor made numerous misogynistic and insulting remarks towards women.

Launched in 2017 to denounce the behavior of American producer Harvey Weinstein, the #MeToo movement has swept through French cinema in recent years. Several big names have been accused of sexual violence, such as directors Jacques Doillon and Benoît Jacquot.