New important step in the investigations into sexual assault targeting Gérard Depardieu: the French cinema giant, already charged with rape, was placed in police custody on Monday in Paris to be heard on facts denounced by two women.
The actor, targeted by the complaints of two women, was summoned on Monday to be interviewed in the premises of the 3rd district of the Parisian judicial police (3rd DPJ), a police source told AFP. He was placed in police custody, said a source close to the investigation.
His lawyers, Mes Christian Saint-Palais and Béatrice Geissmann Achille, did not respond to requests from AFP.
A decorator, who worked on the team of the film “Les Volets Verts” directed by Jean Becker, accuses him of having sexually assaulted her in 2021.
When asked, his lawyer, Me Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, did not wish to comment on the actor's summons.
His client filed a complaint in February 2024 for sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults. The facts date back to September 2021 and allegedly took place in a private hotel in Paris.
According to his account to the Mediapart information site, the actor made numerous gravelly remarks during filming, then later “grabbed her brutally” and “kneaded her waist, her stomach, going up to to her breasts.”
He also made “obscene remarks” to her such as “come touch my big parasol, I'm going to shove it in your pussy”, she told Mediapart.
During this filming, “from morning to evening, we had the right to our salacious comments”, testified the actress Anouk Grinberg, in an interview with AFP. “When film producers hire Depardieu on a film, they know that they are hiring an aggressor,” she accused.
The other complaint is brought by a former film assistant who accuses Gérard Depardieu of sexual assault in 2014.
According to Le Courrier de l'Ouest, this woman, aged 24 at the time of the events and who also wishes to remain anonymous, filed a complaint on January 9, denouncing “obscene comments” made by Gérard Depardieu during meetings in his private mansion in Paris.
– “His hands everywhere” –
She also accuses him of having sexually assaulted her and of having made sexual propositions to her during the filming of the film “The Magician and the Siamese” by Jean-Pierre Mocky in March 2014.
The complainant spoke to the regional newspaper about “her hands all over (her) body” and the actor's “indecent words” on the set.
The French cinema giant has also been indicted since 2020 for rape and sexual assault on a young actress, Charlotte Arnould.
The actress Hélène Darras had also filed a complaint against him for sexual assault during filming in 2007, but it was closed by the Paris prosecutor's office for prescription.
In Spain, Mr. Depardieu, who played “Cyrano de Bergerac”, is also the target of a complaint from the journalist and writer Ruth Baza, who accuses him of having raped her in 1995.
In total, around twenty women testified in the press or in court.
“Never, ever have I abused a woman,” said the 75-year-old actor in an open letter published in October 2023 in Le Figaro, referring to Charlotte Arnould’s accusations.
These investigations come at a time when the world of cinema is experiencing an explosion, shaken by a succession of accusations of sexual violence, from actresses but also from actors.
After Gérard Depardieu, French filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon are the target of an investigation for rape of a minor, after a complaint filed by actress Judith Godrèche.
The latter has become one of the leading figures in the fight against sexual violence in the 7th art in France, following in the wake of actresses Adèle Haenel and Charlotte Arnould.
