Complaint closed without further action in the Chloé Briot case. The Mayenne soprano had filed a complaint on March 16, 2020 for sexual assault against her partner Boris Grappe. During rehearsals, in Nantes and Rennes in January 2020, of the opera “Flood”, the baritone would have touched her buttocks, laid her head on her sex and kneaded her breasts during scenes of a sexual nature.
After several months of procedure, the public prosecutor of Besançon has announced that it will not follow up on this complaint because he doesn’t hold back not intentional to these gestures for several reasons. First the context during rehearsals and performances at the opera: Boris Grappe, actor, tries to find his character. During two love scenes, he gets carried away in his game and allows himself to grab his partner’s buttocks for the sake of credibility. A realism demanded by the director. Except that his Mayenne partner considers his actions inappropriate.
An ambiguous SMS from Chloé Briot
And then the second aspect comes into play. The feeling. Chloé Briot does not talk about her discomfort to her partner and he doesn’t realize it. She alerts the director all the same, the latter reframes Boris Grappe and he directly changes his way of playing until the end of the performances. He also sent her an email telling her that he was not aware of the discomfort of her game and that she should have told him about it. Finally, one last ambiguous element: in an SMS, Chloé Briot, told him “I eat tarama, you will have more to feel”, words that do not facilitate the awareness of his colleague either. All this exculpates the intentionality of the baritone’s gestures even if it is well proven that there was touching.
“She is disappointed, not defeated, but disappointed”
Chloé Briot’s lawyer, Christophe Cottet-Bretonnier, declares himself, at the microphone of France Bleu, disappointed by the decision of the Besançon prosecutor: “I have the impression that we had a judgment a little before the time. I would have preferred there to be a contradictory debate in court. There were enough incriminating elements to go further. These are files that are difficult to achieve, as we know. My client is disappointed, not dejected, disappointed but she is a great girl, a great lyrical singer. She has rebuilt herself. For the moment , I don’t know if she intends to continue or give up, we haven’t discussed it in depth”.