Paris prosecutors said they had opened an investigation based on recent a complaint by a film crew member against star actor Gérard Depardieu for his behavior on set in 2021. The investigation, first reported on Tuesday, March 5, by newsite Mediapart, will focus on what happened during the shooting of Les Volets verts (The Green Shutters).
Depardieu, 75, already faces a rape charge and sexual assault investigation, as well as claims of assault by more than a dozen women – all of which he has strongly denied. He is charged with rape and sexual assault on the actress Charlotte Arnould, and there is another investigation following a complaint from a production assistant accusing him of sexual assault in 2014.
The new accuser's lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, who is also representing Arnould, forwarded the complaint to the Paris prosecutor's office on February 25, alleging sexual assault, harassment and abuse.
The accuser, a set decorator identified by her first name Amélie, told Mediapart that Depardieu made several vulgar remarks on September 10, 2021, then later "brutally grabbed her" and "kneaded her waist and stomach up to her breasts." The incidents were interrupted by a bodyguard, the report said. According to Mediapart, another woman accused Depardieu of twice touching "her breasts and buttocks" on the same set in August 2021.
A previous complaint by the actress Hélène Darras, accusing Depardieu of sexual assault during a shoot in 2007, was dismissed in December because of the statute of limitations. Also in December, the journalist and writer Ruth Baza also filed a complaint in Spain, alleging Depardieu raped her in 1995.
'Aggressor'
One of the actors from Les Volets verts; Anouk Grinberg, told Agence France-Presse on Tuesday that producers knew he was an aggressor. "When film producers hire Depardieu on a film, they know they are hiring an aggressor. Not a potential aggressor – an aggressor," said Grinberg. "We all saw. We all heard... We were treated to his salacious nonsense from morning to night," she added.
Grinberg also said the producers had supposedly appointed someone to deal with harassment issues but that she did nothing. "She was never introduced to me. She never gave her support to the women who were attacked. She never intervened when we had to hear all about 'Pussy, pussy, cock, getting sucked'," she said, referring to Depardieu's alleged barrage of sexual talk.
The film's director, Jean Becker, has denied Grinberg's account, saying he would have confronted Depardieu if any such complaints had been made. "Come on! [Becker] knew very well that two women had been seriously attacked," said Grinberg. "It was to cover up their cowardice, their inability to protect women, that they accuse me [of lying]."