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Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women during a film shoot in 2021 and given an 18-month suspended prison sentence, in a turning point for the #MeToo movement in France.
Depardieu, France’s biggest film star who has made more than 200 films and TV series, is the highest-profile figure in the French film industry to be convicted of sexual assault after years of the country being accused of being slow to take women’s claims of abuse seriously.
The 76-year-old actor, who was not in court for the verdict, was convicted of sexually assaulting a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant director during the shooting of the feature film Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) in Paris in September 2021. His name will be added to the sex offender register in France, the judge ruled. He was also given a €29,000 fine. Depardieu’s lawyer, Jérémie Assous, said he would appeal against the verdict.
The set dresser, named in the media as Amélie, said outside court: “For me, this is a victory. Justice has been done.”
Carine Durrieu Diebolt, Amélie’s lawyer, said: “I hope this is the end of impunity for cinema artists. I’ve heard some actors recently still supporting Depardieu. Now with this verdict, no one can say Gérard Depardieu is not a sexual predator, and that’s very important. Today, on the first day of the Cannes film festival, I want the cinema world to think of the victims of Gérard Depardieu, and to speak of those victims.”
Before the verdict, the French actor Brigitte Bardot backed Depardieu publicly, defending what she called “talented people who grab a girl’s bottom”.
The Green lawmaker Marie-Charlotte Garin wrote on social media: “Depardieu is convicted at last. This is a clear message: even the most powerful are not untouchable. My thoughts with all the victims, who, like in this trial, still face contempt, challenges and humiliation for daring to speak out #MeToo.”
Depardieu, a leading actor in French cinema for decades, had for years been supported by key figures in the cultural and political world and had become a symbol of France’s reluctance to reckon with women’s allegations.
In December 2023, when Depardieu was under formal investigation for rape in another case and also facing scrutiny over sexist comments revealed in a TV documentary, the French president, Emmanuel Macron, defended him saying “he makes France proud.” Asked at the time about stripping Depardieu of a state award, Macron said: “You will never see me participate in a manhunt … hate that type of thing.”
Finding Depardieu guilty, the judge Thierry Donard, set a precedent by ruling that Depardieu’s defence lawyer, Assous, had been “excessively harsh” to the two woman in court, saying they were not real victims and liars. Assous had said the women were working for the cause of “rabid feminism” and called their lawyers hysterical, “abject and stupid” and said they had an “unbearable voice”. The judge awarded the complainants compensation for being further victimised by Depardieu’s defence during the trial, ordering Depardieu to pay each woman €1,000.
The court heard Depardieu trapped the set decorator, Amélie, between his legs on the film set and grabbed her buttocks, pubis and chest. She said he trapped her with force, used obscene language and had to be pulled off her.
Depardieu targeted Amélie on set when she was making phone calls to track down parasols for the film. He allegedly said: “Come and touch my big parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.”
Amélie told the court that he then grabbed her hips, pulled her towards him and trapped her between his thighs with great force, and grabbed her body, including her pubis, waist and chest.
“That’s where I understood the strength he had, he held me very, very hard,” she said. “I remember his eyes, I saw this big face, red eyes, very angry, very agitated. And he was saying: ‘Come touch my big parasol,’ with a crazy look. I’ve never seen anything like that.”
She said: “That fear that I felt – what stands out for me is not his sexual desire but his savagery. It was the fact that he knew I was afraid – I saw his eyes light up with a kind of pleasure in making someone afraid. I remember that savagery. He really terrified me, and that amused him.”
Depardieu was also convicted of sexually assaulting an assistant director on the same film, touching her breasts or buttocks on three separate occasions. The woman, who was not named in the media, was tasked with accompanying Depardieu from his dressing room on to the set during the filming. She said the assaults left her “petrified”.
The assistant director told the court that a first sexual assault happened during a night shoot in Paris, when she found herself alone with Depardieu at the end of a short road where his dressing room was located as they walked towards an outdoor set.
She said the second assault happened at a later date on a set inside a Paris apartment, where Depardieu blocked her against a door and put his two hands on her breasts. She told the court: “I said no. I was scared.”
She said that on a third occasion Depardieu put his hand on her buttocks and she again said: “No.”
The assistant director told the court that Depardieu “talked about sex all day on set, constantly talking of ‘pussy’ to everyone”.
Depardieu did not attend the reading of the verdict in court. His whereabouts were not immediately clear. Last month, he was working in the Portuguese archipelago of the Azores on a new film directed by his friend, the actor Fanny Ardant, who testified in court in support of him.
Depardieu denied sexual assault. He told the trial that the media had used allegations against him to damage his reputation. He attacked the #MeToo movement as well as women who had held protest placards outside a concert tour he was on at the time of the allegations. “This movement is going to become a terror,” he said.
The Paris prosecutor’s office has requested Depardieu face a further trial for rape and sexual assault in a separate case brought by the actor Charlotte Arnould, but no date has been set.
In an open letter to Le Figaro in 2023, Depardieu denied the allegations, saying any encounter with Arnould had been consensual.
