(Paris) A clear acceleration in a flagship investigation of the French #metoo movement: filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, accused for several months by actress Judith Godrèche and other women of sexual violence, are in police custody in Paris on Monday.
The two men deny these accusations. They arrived Monday morning at the Regional Directorate of the Judicial Police in Paris, accompanied by their lawyers, an AFP journalist noted.
Benoît Jacquot “will finally be able to speak in court”, his counsel reacted Me Julia Minkowski, who denounced “questionable” police custody when “a free hearing should have been decided”.
“I deplore all of these dysfunctions of justice, thanks to ultra-media coverage which leads to unacceptable excesses,” she added.
PHOTO GUILLAUME DAUDIN, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
Jacques Doillon and his lawyer
For mee Marie Dosé, lawyer for Jacques Doillon, “none of the legal criteria can justify this measure” of police custody, “36 years” after the facts denounced by Judith Godrèche.
His client “should have been heard in the context of a free hearing given the age of the facts, the fact that they have been prescribed for more than two decades, and the inevitable dismissal of proceedings which will close this investigation”, a- she added in a press release.
“His presumption of innocence is flouted all day long” in this “procedure largely contaminated by extrajudicial considerations”, in particular “communication”.
According to sources close to the case, these police custody could allow confrontations between each of the directors and their respective accusers, including Mme Godrèche.
” I’m crying […]. I don’t know if I have the strength, but I will. I will have it, I will have it,” reacted the actress on Instagram Monday morning, in a message accompanied by a photo in which she appears with Benoît Jacquot.
M’s lawyerme Godrèche, Me Laure Heinich did not wish to comment, emphasizing the secrecy of the investigation.
“Grip”
At the beginning of February, his 52-year-old client had triggered a new storm in the French #metoo by filing a complaint against Benoît Jacquot for rape and Jacques Doillon for sexual assault.
Mr. Jacquot and Mr.me Godrèche, born in March 1972, began their relationship in the spring of 1986. They lived openly together, even buying an apartment in Paris, until their separation in 1992. For the actress, it was a relationship of “control » and “perversion”.
Two other actresses filed a complaint against Mr. Jacquot.
Julia Roy, 42 years his junior and who starred in four of his films between 2016 and 2021, filed a complaint for sexual assault in “a context of violence and moral constraint that lasted several years,” according to a source close to the case.
Actress Isild le Besco filed a complaint at the end of May for rape of a minor over the age of 15 and rape dating back to the years 1998-2007.
Regarding Mr. Doillon, Mr.me Godrèche accuses him of having “groped” her during an unexpected sex scene on the set of a film in 1989 when she was 15 years old and in a relationship with Benoît Jacquot.
Isild Le Besco also indicated that she had to endure Mr. Doillon’s advances during work sessions, while actress Anna Mouglalis accused the filmmaker of having forcibly kissed her at his home in 2011.
This new wave of accusations in the French #metoo has put French cinema in turmoil at the start of 2024 and shaken the French Cinema César ceremony and the Cannes Festival.
A commission of inquiry into sexual violence in cinema, audiovisual, live performance, fashion and advertising began in May, but was brought to a halt following the dissolution of the French National Assembly in early June.
On Friday, Dominique Boutonnat, one of the most powerful men in the profession in France, left the head of the National Center for Cinema (CNC) after his conviction for sexual assault.
Gérard Depardieu is due to stand trial in Paris in October for sexual assault on two women, and risks a trial for rape for a third.