Depardieu to stand trial over alleged rape and sexual assault of fellow actor

The French actor Gérard Depardieu has been ordered to stand trial on charges of raping and sexually assaulting the actor Charlotte Arnould at his Paris home in 2018.

Depardieu, France’s biggest film star, has been under investigation in the case since 2020. A trial date has not yet been set.

In May a Paris court handed the 76-year-old an 18-month suspended sentence in a separate case in which he was convicted of sexually assaulting two women on a Paris film set in 2021.

Arnould, whose father was a friend of Depardieu, reported the actor to police in August 2018, days after the alleged attacks. Arnould was 22 at the time, and Depardieu was 70.

In an open letter to Le Figaro in October 2023, Depardieu denied the allegations, saying any encounter with Arnould had been consensual. “Never, ever, have I abused a woman,” he wrote.

Carine Durrieu Diebolt, Arnould’s lawyer, said the judge had ordered a trial at Paris’s criminal court for sexual assault and rape by digital penetration on 7 and 13 August 2018. Durrieu Diebolt said she and Arnould were relieved and confident about the case.

Le Monde reported that the state prosecutor’s recommendation for a trial had stated that Depardieu “constrained the victim to submit to his will to impose sexual acts on her that she did not have the capacity to oppose”.

Arnould, 29, wrote on social media: “Seven years later, seven years of horror and hell … I think I’m having trouble realising how huge this is. I’m relieved”

In a separate trial earlier this year, Depardieu, who has made more than 200 films and TV series, was found guilty 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. The judge ruled that his name must be added to the sex offender register in France.

Depardieu’s conviction in May was seen as a turning point for the #MeToo movement in France. He became the biggest figure in the French film industry to be convicted of sexual assault after years of France being accused of being slow to take women’s claims of abuse seriously. Depardieu denied the charges and his lawyer said he would appeal against his conviction.

In December 2023, when Depardieu was under formal investigation for rape and sexual assault in the Arnould 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.”

Depardieu has denied all allegations of sexual assault. He told his sexual assault trial earlier this year 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.

Agence France-Presse contributed to this report