The French actor Gérard Depardieu, whose trial on sexual assault costs was because of begin in Paris on Monday, has requested for a delay because of well being causes, his lawyer has stated.
“Gerard Depardieu is extraordinarily affected and sadly his docs have forbid him from being current on the listening to, which is why he’ll ask for a postponement to a later date in order that he can attend,” Jérémie Assous informed Franceinfo on Monday morning.
Depardieu had been anticipated to look at a felony courtroom listening to at 1.30pm (1230 GMT) for the beginning of his trial for allegedly sexually assaulting two girls throughout a movie shoot.
The 75-year-old faces quite a few additional complaints and a attainable second courtroom case.
The actor is the highest-profile determine to face accusations in French cinema’s model of the #MeToo motion, triggered in 2017 by allegations in opposition to the US producer Harvey Weinstein.
The names of the 2 girls accusing Depardieu of abuse throughout a 2021 shoot haven’t been made public. One of many plaintiffs, a set dresser now aged 55, reported in February that she had suffered sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults whereas filming director Jean Becker’s Les Volets Verts (The Inexperienced Shutters) in a personal home in Paris.
“I count on the justice system to be the identical for everyone and for Monsieur Depardieu to not obtain particular remedy simply because he’s an artist,” the plaintiff’s lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, informed AFP.
Assous has beforehand stated that Depardieu’s defence would provide “witnesses and proof that may present he has merely been focused by false accusations”. He accused the plaintiff of trying to “earn money” by claiming €30,000 (£25,000) in compensation.
The plaintiff informed the French investigative web site Mediapart that Depardieu had began loudly calling for a cooling fan throughout the shoot as a result of he “couldn’t even get it up” within the warmth.
She claimed the actor went on to boast that he might “give girls an orgasm with out touching them”. The plaintiff alleged that an hour later she was “brutally grabbed” by Depardieu as she was strolling off the set. The actor pinned her by “closing his legs” round her earlier than groping her waist and her abdomen, persevering with as much as her breasts, she stated.
Depardieu made “obscene remarks” throughout the incident, she stated, together with: “Come and contact my huge parasol. I’ll stick it in your pussy.” She described the actor’s bodyguards dragging him away as he shouted: “We’ll see one another once more, my expensive.” “My consumer expects that the justice system will discover Gérard Depardieu to be a serial sexual assaulter,” Durrieu-Diebolt stated.
The second plaintiff within the case, an assistant director on the identical movie, additionally alleges sexual violence.
Anouk Grinberg, an actor who appeared in The Inexperienced Shutters, informed AFP that Depardieu had used “salacious phrases … from morning until night time”.
“When producers employed Depardieu to work on a movie, they knew they have been hiring an assaulter,” she stated. Grinberg stated that in her expertise, Depardieu had “all the time used sexual, smutty language” – however that his behaviour had develop into “a lot, a lot worse, with permission from his career, that pays him for it and covers up his offences”.
About 20 girls have accused Depardieu of assorted sexual offences.
The actor Charlotte Arnould was the primary to file a felony grievance. A decide has but to rule on a request from prosecutors in August for Depardieu to face trial for raping and sexually assaulting her.
An investigation can be beneath approach in Paris after a former manufacturing assistant accused Depardieu of a sexual assault in 2014. The actor Hélène Darras filed a sexual assault grievance that fell foul of the statute of limitations. The Spanish author and journalist Ruth Baza has accused Depardieu of raping her in 1995.
“By no means, however by no means, have I abused a girl,” Depardieu wrote in an open letter revealed within the conservative newspaper Le Figaro in October final yr.
Weeks later, the president, Emmanuel Macron, shocked feminists by complaining of a “manhunt” focusing on Depardieu, whom he referred to as a “towering actor” who “makes France proud”. Macron’s remarks adopted the broadcast by an investigative TV present of a recording of Depardieu making repeated misogynistic and insulting remarks about girls.
Depardieu is the largest star to face accusations in French cinema’s #MeToo motion. The administrators Jacques Doillon and Benoît Jacquot are amongst different distinguished figures accused of sexual violence.
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