The French film star Gérard Depardieu was convicted by a Paris court docket on Tuesday on expenses of sexually assaulting two ladies engaged on the set of a movie wherein he was starring in 2021. He acquired a suspended sentence of 18 months.
The sentence was according to what the prosecutor had requested after Mr. Depardieu’s four-day trial in March. The actor was ordered to be placed on an inventory of intercourse offenders.
The decide additionally dominated that Mr. Depardieu should pay one of many two victims 15,000 euros, about $17,000, in damages and the opposite €14,040, which included her medical charges.
Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, stated that his shopper would attraction the choice.
The ladies — a set decorator and an assistant director — labored on “Les Volets Verts,” a 2021 French movie starring Mr. Depardieu.
The set decorator, now 54, who has agreed to be recognized publicly solely by her first title, Amélie, testified that Mr. Depardieu grabbed her by her waist and pulled her towards him whereas he was sitting down. Then he locked her between his legs and ran his fingers over her buttocks, genitals and breasts whereas muttering obscenities, she stated.
The assistant director, now 34, testified that the actor had touched her breasts and buttocks on three events as she walked him from his dressing room to the set in Paris. She has not agreed to be recognized publicly.
The decide referred to as their model of occasions coherent and constant, and supported by different proof.
Mr. Depardieu, 76, denied the sexual assaults in each instances.
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He stated he was not the “vulgar, impolite, trashy one who makes enjoyable of individuals” that he has been portrayed as within the media. “I respect individuals. I like to assist individuals,” he advised the court docket in March.
However he additionally stated he was from a distinct technology and that his flamboyant, bombastic and unapologetic persona was ill-suited for the present period.
From the start, it was clear the trial was about greater than two sexual assaults by one in every of France’s most well-known movie stars. What occurred within the court docket, as an alternative, was a part of a protracted overdue reckoning concerning the nation’s obsession with seduction, the uncritical adulation of its artists and the stalling in France of the #MeToo motion.
Mr. Depardieu is taken into account among the many best actors of his technology, starring in additional than 230 movies, together with “Inexperienced Card” and “Cyrano de Bergerac.”
He shot to fame after starring within the 1974 movie “Les Valseuses,” wherein he performed one in every of two small-town thugs who romp round France, stealing automobiles, and sexually harassing and assaulting ladies. He stated the movie mirrored his hardscrabble upbringing in central France as a member of a gang that stole automobiles and smuggled whiskey and cigarettes.
In 1978 and 1991, Mr. Depardieu advised two completely different American movie journalists that he had taken half in his first gang rape at age 9, and “there had been many after that.” Later, he stated it had been a translation error and a part of an American smear marketing campaign towards him. He stated he had by no means raped anybody however had been speaking about his sexual experiences.
In France, he was well-known for his larger-than-life persona, a person who drove his automobile recklessly and arrived on movie units drunk. Later, he hobnobbed with dictators like Fidel Castro and Aleksandr G. Lukashenko of Belarus, and deserted France for Belgium and then Russia to evade a brand new tax on the tremendous wealthy.
He has been on the heart of the talk in France over the #MeToo motion since its arrival within the nation in 2017, with accusations of sexual abuse piling up towards him. He has vigorously denied the accusations and been publicly defended by many distinguished and highly effective individuals within the nation.
Mr. Depardieu has vigorously denied the accusations and been publicly defended by many distinguished and highly effective individuals within the nation.
Greater than 20 ladies have accused him of sexual abuse, principally by chatting with French information retailers, notably the investigation web site Mediapart. Six of these ladies filed complaints with the police — two of which have been dropped as a result of they have been previous the statute of limitations.
Among the many distinguished individuals who have rushed to Mr. Depardieu’s protection through the years is President Emmanuel Macron of France, who condemned what he referred to as a “manhunt” towards the actor, whom he stated, “makes France proud.”
This was the primary case towards Mr. Depardieu to go to trial.
Three different ladies in movie and tv testified as witnesses throughout the proceedings, describing scenes of sexual abuse that they had suffered whereas working with Mr. Depardieu up to now.
Considered one of them, Lucile Leider, stated the actor assaulted her a number of occasions when she labored as a dressing up assistant in 2014. She recounted to the court docket how she had been including a cape and a hat to his outfit, when she stated he pulled her behind a curtain, pressed himself towards her and stroked her breasts and genitals whereas whispering obscenities.
“I remembered saying no with a low voice, however Gérard Depardieu doesn’t know that phrase,” she advised the court docket. “This man is harmful,” she stated. “Everybody round him is aware of it they usually don’t do something.”
Sitting on a cube-like stool throughout the trial, Mr. Depardieu introduced a research in confusion and distraction. He mumbled, muddling by semi-responses, and mashed disjointed concepts into run-on sentences. Requested about his well being, he talked about Pope John II and St. Augustin. Requested about ladies, he introduced up the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan, hospitals he beloved and Victor Hugo.
At one level, he admitted he didn’t know what a sexual assault was, saying it should be “extra severe” than simply placing a hand on a girl’s buttocks.
He advised the court docket he got here from a distinct technology — one which discovered his obscene jokes humorous — and that he would use vulgar language on the set to annoy individuals and provoke a response.
He “in all probability” introduced it was too sizzling to get an erection on set, as Amélie had described, he stated, “however the obscenity was not addressed to her.”
That period, and his time, he stated, was completed.
“I come from the previous world, in fact, and am unsure if this new world pursuits me,” he stated.
He blamed the #MeToo motion for depriving him of labor for 3 years and stated it was more likely to “turn into a terror.” However he additionally stated he believed the releasing of ladies’s voices was an excellent factor that he “accepted completely.”
Mr. Depardieu’s lawyer, Mr. Assous, turned nearly as a lot a topic of public debate as his shopper throughout the trial. Mr. Assous’s courtroom techniques and protection technique have been denounced by greater than 180 French legal professionals in an opinion piece within the newspaper Le Monde as rife with “sexism and misogyny.”
At a listening to earlier than the trial, Mr. Assous stated that the 2 victims have been pushed by greed. He additionally loudly interrupted the court docket dozens of occasions, shouting that the plaintiffs’ two feminine legal professionals have been “abject,” “silly” and “hysterical,” and denouncing the trial as “Stalinist.”
He referred to as each of Depardieu’s victims liars, saying one had by no means been a “actual sufferer.” “We don’t imagine you,” he stated as he ended one cross-examination.
The court docket conceded that the ladies had suffered “secondary victimization” from Mr. Assous’s conduct throughout the trial, noting that the precise to protection didn’t legitimize “outrageous phrases and humiliation.” Included within the damages the court docket awarded them was €1,000 for secondary victimization.
