Why is actor Gerard Depardieu on trial – and what does it mean for #MeToo in France? | World Newsnews24

One of France’s most successful actors is in court accused of sexually assaulting two women on the set of one of his films.

Gerard Depardieu, 76, has starred in more than 200 films over five decades, winning two best lead actor awards at the Cesars, as well as being nominated for an Oscar and 15 other Cesars.

In recent years he has faced a series of sexual assault allegations, all of which he denies.

While the #MeToo movement ultimately led to the downfall of Hollywood film director Harvey Weinstein, France’s #balancestonporc equivalent has struggled to gain momentum.

Depardieu’s court case, coming soon after that of Gisele Pelicot, who waived her anonymity to reveal her husband had orchestrated her drugging and rape by more than 50 men, is proof for many that France is finally getting its own #MeToo moment.

Here Sky News looks at the case – and what it means for women’s rights in France.

What is he accused of?

Depardieu is accused of sexually assaulting two female crew members on the set of the film Les Volets Verts (Green Shutters) in 2021.

The anonymous women both claim the actor forced himself on them on multiple occasions, touching them over their clothes, according to court documents.

The first woman said in one incident, as she passed him in a corridor he grabbed her, pinned her down between his legs and rubbed himself against her waist, hips, and chest, making accompanying gestures and lewd comments.

The other woman claimed he touched her buttocks in public on more than one occasion, as well as touching her chest.

Depardieu denies the allegations and is expected to appear in person at the Tribunal de Paris for the case to be heard on Monday and Tuesday. A panel of judges will decide whether he is found guilty, which would leave him facing up to five years in prison or a fine of €75,000 (£62,000).

The trial was due to start in October but was postponed after Depardieu’s legal team asked for a six-month delay due to his poor health. Suffering complications from diabetes and high blood pressure, they said he was unable to sit for long periods.

Separately, he also remains under investigation for the alleged rape and sexual assault of a 22-year-old actress. The woman claims Depardieu sexually assaulted her twice at his home.

She originally reported the alleged incidents in 2018 but the charges were dropped in 2019 following a nine-month investigation.

However, the case was reopened in October 2020 when the woman refiled the complaint.

In March 2022, Depardieu’s bid to get the case thrown out was rejected by Paris’s court of appeal, with authorities saying he would remain under investigation until the matter is either sent to trial or dismissed. He denies the allegations.

In April 2023, investigative French media outlet Mediapart reported claims of 13 women who said Depardieu sexually assaulted or harassed them between 2004 and 2022.

In an open letter in the newspaper Le Figaro that October, Depardieu said he had “never abused a woman”.

A group of 50 French stars, including singer and wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy Carla Bruni, wrote their own open letter defending him in Le Monde, condemning what they described as his “lynching” and describing him as “probably the greatest” French actor.

A week later, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “manhunt” for Depardieu, calling him an “immense actor” who “makes France proud”.

Who is Gerard Depardieu?

Depardieu was born in Chateauroux, central France in 1948. He left home at the age of 16 for Paris, where he got his first acting job with a travelling theatre company.

After a few minor film roles, his break came in 1973 with a lead part in Bertrand Blier’s film Les Valseuses (Going Places) – alongside his former theatre friends Patrick Dewaere and Miou Miou.

From there his popularity boomed and he became one of the most prolific French actors of the 1980s and 1990s.

He won awards for his roles in The Last Metro and Cyrano de Bergerac, which also received an Oscar nomination. He was made president of the Cannes Film Festival jury in 1992.

His success also saw him become a Chevalier of France’s Legion d’Honneur and its Ordre national du Merite – two of the country’s most prestigious honours.

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Across roughly 250 films, he has worked with more than 150 directors, including Jean-Luc Godard and Ridley Scott.

He became close friends with Robert De Niro after they starred together in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film 1900 in 1976.

Depardieu married fellow actor Elisabeth Depardieu in 1971. She starred alongside him in Jean de Florette and Manon Of The Spring in 1986. They had two children, who both became actors. Their son Guillaume died from pneumonia aged 37 in 2008. The couple divorced in 1996.

He announced his retirement from acting in 2005, claiming he had made “enough” films and wished to pursue other things.

In 2012 he moved to Belgium to avoid paying taxes in France. He wrote an open letter to the then prime minister, saying he was surrendering his French passport because he wanted “nothing to do” with his home country and the government was trying to “punish success”.

Vladimir Putin personally signed an executive order to give him Russian citizenship in 2013. Two years later his films were banned in Ukraine over comments he made questioning the country’s sovereignty as an independent state. He has since condemned Russia’s war there.

He also claims to have been given citizenship by the United Arab Emirates.

In 2023 he was stripped of his National Order of Quebec after a documentary revealed him making lewd comments and sexual gestures on a trip to North Korea in 2018, which the region’s premier described as “shocking”.

Why is the Depardieu case so important in France?

The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the US saw women in the creative industries calling out sexual harassment and assault by their male counterparts.

But it “didn’t really take off in France” in the same way, Sarah McGrath, chief executive of Women For Women France, an organisation fighting against gender-based violence, tells Sky News.

While she saw colleagues around the world “thrilled that victims could finally feel confident to talk about the crimes they’d be subjected to”, she says in France “we had a very different experience”.

In 2018, dozens of female French stars and intellectuals signed an “anti-MeToo manifesto”, condemning the movement as a “witch hunt” and defending men’s sexual freedom to proposition women.

Although some, notably Depardieu’s co-star and friend Catherine Deneuve, have publicly U-turned on the issue, it demonstrated a resistance to change in French society.

Blanche Sabbah, a French feminist activist and comic book author, says: “We love to talk about being the cultural exception in France.

“We have this idea that if you are some kind of artistic genius then you are less accountable for bad behaviour – and that we’re more sexually liberated – and don’t concern ourselves with moral panics like in the US. I think that stopped the [MeToo] movement in its tracks.”

Ms McGrath describes this “cultural exception” as “an attitude that a man’s reputation and livelihood is more important than victims”.

Both women also point to a “general distrust” of claimants and “false ideas” they are bypassing the courts and telling their stories in the media to “get money”.

“It’s simply not true and comes from a lack of understanding that the French justice system does not play a protective role for victims of sexual violence,” she says.

“Victims are actually more likely to come out with debts of thousands of euros if they go through the justice system, which far exceeds any compensation they might get.”

But while the “balancestonporc” – report your pig – hashtag struggled to gain momentum in 2018, the women say they have seen a shift – particularly following the case of Gisele Pelicot and the conviction of her husband for raping and inviting at least 50 other men to rape her while she was drugged and unconscious.

“It’s taken time, but finally we’re getting somewhere,” Ms Sabbah says. “Gisele’s case serves as a reminder that our culture has a huge influence on how we behave.”

Those found guilty in the Pelicot case were aged between 20 and 70 and included a journalist, nurse, firefighters, and a DJ.

“She has proven that this is the problem of every man – that what you think your favourite movie star can do serves as an argument for justifying what crimes you would commit as a ‘normal’ person’,” Ms Sabbah adds.

Regardless of the outcome of the Depardieu case, both women agree that his prosecution represents a “huge step forward” for women’s rights and victims of gender-based violence.

“There have been three or four convictions [of men for gender-based violence] recently, so I think the way those cases are perceived now is different to how it was in 2018,” Ms Sabbah says.

“We have gone from ‘classement sans suite’ (no further action) to movie stars on trial.”