Gérard Depardieu faces a new complaint for sexual assault, this time from a set decorator who alleges she was touched during filming in 2021.
In the complaint filed with the Paris prosecutor’s office, the 53-year-old decorator claims that Depardieu grabbed her and kneaded her waist, stomach and breasts during the filming of the film Green Shuttersby Jean Becker, lawyer Carine Durrieu Diebolt reported on Monday.
Other people would have intervened during the filming to get the actor to stop his touching, added the lawyer.
Two lawyers for Gérard Depardieu did not immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.
The industry in the spotlight
This latest accusation comes after French actress Judith Godrèche called on the French film industry to “face the truth” about sexual and physical violence and assault, during the César ceremony on Friday.
Judith Godrèche, who recently accused directors Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon of rape and sexual assault when she was a teenager, has condemned French cinema for its silence on attacks committed in the industry.
“For some time now, I have been talking, I have been talking, but I can’t hear you, or barely. Where are you ? What do you say ? A whisper. Half a word,” she said during her speech at the César gala on Friday.
“We can decide that men accused of rape cannot make it rain or shine in the cinema. […] Let’s not play heroines on screen only to find ourselves hiding in the woods in real life. »
Gérard Depardieu, aged 75, is already accused by more than a dozen other women of having harassed them, touched them inappropriately or sexually assaulted them. He was the subject of the first accusations of rape and sexual assault in 2020 following allegations from actress Charlotte Arnould.