Directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon taken into custody for sexual violence

Filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon were taken into police custody on Monday 1^er July in the morning in Paris in the premises of the brigade for the protection of minors, franceinfo learned from a source close to the case, confirming information from AFP.

The two filmmakers have been accused by several actresses of sexual violence. Judith Godrèche filed a complaint in February against Benoît Jacquot, 77, and Jacques Doillon, 80, for rape of a minor and sexual assault, triggering the opening of an investigation in Paris. On May 29, actress Isild Le Besco announced in Release having filed a complaint against the director Benoît Jacquot for acts of rape of a minor over 15 years old, committed between 1998 and 2007. The actress Julia Roy also filed a complaint against Benoît Jacquot in March for sexual violence in a context of violence physical which lasted several years.

In a statement shared on Monday, Jacques Doillon’s lawyer, Marie Dosé, considered the placement of her client in police custody to be “unnecessary, disproportionate and indecent”. She believes that her client “should have been heard in a free hearing given the age of the facts”. An opinion shared by Benoît Jacquot’s lawyer, Julia Minkowski, who believes that “the envisaged measure of police custody is […] “criticizable. A free hearing should have been decided.”