French film legend Depardieu requests postponement of trial for sexual assault

Actor Gerard Depardieu asked on Monday for a postponement of the start of his trial on sexual assault charges. He said his health prevented him from attending the procedure, with numerous other complaints and a possible second lawsuit already looming.

The actor is the most prominent figure to face accusations in the French film version of the #MeToo movement, which was sparked in 2017 by accusations against American producer Harvey Weinstein.

Depardieu, 75, was expected to appear at the criminal court hearing due to start at 1:30 pm (12:30 GMT) in Paris.

But just hours before the show, his lawyer Jeremy Assous said the actor would not be able to attend.

“Gerard Depardieu is very affected and unfortunately his doctors have forbidden him to attend the hearing. Therefore, he will ask for a postponement to a later date so that he can attend,” Assous told Franceinfo.

Depardieu is accused of abuse that allegedly took place during a 2021 film shoot. The names of the two women who accuse him have not been made public.

One of the accusers, a regular actress who is now 55 years old, reported in February that she suffered sexual abuse, sexual harassment and sexist insults while filming “Les Volet Verts” (“The Green Shutters”) director Jean Becker in a private house in Paris. .

“I expect that the justice system will be the same for everyone and that Mr. Depardieu will not receive special treatment just because he is an artist,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, told AFP.

Assous said Depardieu’s defense would provide “witnesses and evidence showing that he is simply the target of false accusations.”

He accused the prosecutor of trying to “make money” by seeking 30,000 euros ($32,500) in damages.

The prosecutor told French investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu had started shouting loudly for a cooling fan during the shoot because he “couldn’t even get it up” in the heat.

She claimed the actor then bragged that he could “give women an orgasm without touching them.”

The accuser claimed that an hour later she was “brutally grabbed” by Depardieu as she walked off the set.

The actor held her down by “closing his legs” around her before groping her waist and stomach, down to her breasts, she added.

Depardieu made “obscene comments” during the incident, she said, including: “Come and touch my big parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.’

She described how the actor’s bodyguards dragged him away as he shouted, “We meet again, my love.”

“My client expects that the justice system will regard Gerard Depardieu as a serial killer,” Durrieu-Diebolt said.

The second plaintiff in Monday’s case, an assistant director on the same film, also alleges sexual assault.

– ‘Hiring an attacker’ –

Anouk Grinberg, an actor who appeared in “The Green Shutters”, told AFP that Depardieu had used “lascivious words… from morning to evening”.

“When producers hired Depardieu to work on a film, they knew they were hiring an attacker,” she added.

Grinberg said that in her experience Depardieu had “always used sexual, dirty language” but that his behavior had become “much, much worse, with the permission of his profession, which pays him for it and covers up his transgressions.”

About twenty women have now accused Depardieu of various sexual offenses.

Actor Charlotte Arnould was the first to file a criminal complaint.

A judge has yet to rule on a request from prosecutors in August to put Depardieu on trial for rape and sexual abuse.

An investigation is also underway in Paris after a former production assistant accused Depardieu of sexual assault in 2014.

And actor Helene Darras filed a sexual assault complaint that violated the statute of limitations.

Spanish writer and journalist Ruth Baza has accused Depardieu of raping her in 1995.

“Never, ever, have I abused a woman,” Depardieu wrote in an open letter in the conservative daily Le Figaro last October.

Weeks later, President Emmanuel Macron shocked feminists by complaining of a “manhunt” for Depardieu, whom he called a “towering actor” who “makes France proud.”

Macron’s comments followed the broadcast by an investigative TV program of a recording in which Depardieu repeatedly made misogynistic and insulting comments about women.

Depardieu is the biggest star to face accusations in French cinema’s #MeToo movement.

Directors Jacques Doillon and Benoit Jacquot are among the other major figures accused of sexual assault.

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