Paris — French cinema icon Gérard Depardieu was convicted Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in Paris in 2021 and handed an 18-month suspended sentence. The 76-year-old actor had denied the charges that he forcefully groped a set designer and an assistant producer on the set of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”).
Depardieu was not in court for the verdict or sentencing on Tuesday, as he’s currently filming in Portugal. His lawyer said he would appeal the verdict.
Depardieu was accused by a set designer, 34, and an assistant producer, 54, who said the actor grabbed and groped them during filming in Paris in August and September 2021.
Taking the stand in March for the first time, Depardieu told the court he was nothing like the man described by the two women.
“I don’t see why I would grope a woman, her buttocks, her breasts,” he said. “I’m not somebody who rubs himself up against people on the metro.”
The two women did not immediately report the alleged offenses, but after the Depardieu published an open letter in Le Figaro newspaper in October 2023 in which he stated: “Never, never have I abused a woman,” the set designer went to the police. She reported Depardieu for alleged sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults.
The trial opened in October, but it was adjourned due to Depardieu’s failing health. His lawyer told the court in March that Depardieu was diabetic and had undergone a quadruple-bypass heart surgery.
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Medical experts later deemed him fit to attend the trial, but limited the hearings to six hours per day, with a provision for 15-minute pauses if Depardieu needed them.
“Gérard Depardieu is someone who is very free, who can be extremely direct,” said his lawyer Jérémie Assous, who dismissed the accusations as “lies.”
Dozens of protesters, mostly women, gathered outside the courthouse in March, denouncing what they called endemic sexism and impunity for sex offenders in French cinema and French society. They said they were pleased the actor was finally in court to answer the allegations, and waved placards with messages including: “Victims, we believe you; rapists, we see you”; “Touch one, you answer to all.”
A giant of French cinema, Depardieu has been more infamous than famous in recent years. He’s been accused of sexual misconduct by more than a dozen women in the movie industry. Many of the claims surfaced years after the alleged incidents took place, however, so under French law the actor cannot be tried for them.
In a high-profile move, the actor left his native France for a few years about a decade ago, moving to Belgium, having criticized French tax increases.
Depardieu has been open about his admiration for Russia under autocratic President Vladimir Putin, who bestowed Russian citizenship on him in 2013.
He later also became a citizen of Dubai.
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