French actor Gérard Depardieu leaves for a break throughout his trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two girls on a movie set in 2021.
Aurelien Morissard/AP
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Aurelien Morissard/AP
PARIS – French movie legend Gérard Depardieu is about to obtain a verdict on Tuesday in a carefully watched sexual assault case. Two girls say the 76-year-old actor groped them on the set of the 2022 movie Les Volets Verts.
In France, the trial has been broadly seen as greater than a case in opposition to one man. Ladies’s rights advocates say it is a check of how significantly the nation takes sexual violence, and whether or not its long-delayed #MeToo reckoning is lastly starting.
“If there is a responsible verdict, it is going to be a victory not only for the ladies in court docket, however for all others who have been silenced by time,” Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, a lawyer representing one of many two plaintiffs, instructed NPR the day earlier than the decision.
Durrieu-Diebolt says greater than 20 girls have come ahead with accusations in opposition to Depardieu — together with groping, harassment, and rape — however solely two instances fell inside France’s statute of limitations to make it to court docket.
The case was initially anticipated to be heard in late 2024, nevertheless it was postponed a number of instances, first attributable to scheduling points, after which for medical causes cited by the protection.
The trial lastly opened in March 2025 and lasted 4 days.
Throughout the proceedings, Depardieu testified that if he ever touched the ladies, it wasn’t with sexual intent. He admitted to utilizing vulgar language on set, and mentioned he now avoids feminine assistants in dressing rooms in order to not be misunderstood.
“I attempt to not be heard by the brand new world,” he instructed the court docket. “I feel my time is completed.”
In October 2023, Depardieu revealed an open letter in Le Figaro denying all allegations. “By no means, ever have I abused a lady,” he wrote, calling the accusations a “lynching that has been reserved for me.”
Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, was accused of utilizing aggressive ways in his questioning of the plaintiffs in the course of the trial, prompting practically 200 French legal professionals to signal an open letter condemning the protection technique as sexist and intimidating.
Prosecutors have requested for an 18-month suspended jail sentence and a advantageous of as much as €200,000 euros (roughly $221,000).
The actor has continued working all through the authorized proceedings and acquired public help from some high-profile figures, together with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Talking on nationwide tv in December 2023, Macron described himself as “an incredible admirer of Gérard Depardieu,” and warned in opposition to what he referred to as a “witch hunt” when requested whether or not the actor needs to be stripped of his Legion of Honor, France’s highest award of benefit.
The feedback drew backlash, and Macron later clarified that he can be “uncompromising” within the battle in opposition to rape and what he referred to as “a tradition of brutality.”
A wider reckoning
For a lot of girls’s rights advocates, the Depardieu case is a part of a a lot bigger sample.
In January, a French parliamentary report discovered that sexual violence and harassment stay “endemic” within the nation’s movie and TV trade.
It additionally famous a local weather of “collective denial” and warned that France’s authorized system could also be failing victims.
One other high-profile rape investigation involving Depardieu, introduced by actress Charlotte Arnould, stays open.
“It is a check of the ethical independence of the justice system,” mentioned Elodie Tuaillon-Hibon, a lawyer and analyst targeted on systemic responses to sexual violence.
“Depardieu has turn out to be a logo of what we not need to see in France: this, ‘bawdiness,’ this so-called ‘gallantry,’ which, in actuality, is harassment.”
