Prosecutors stated on Monday that a sexual assault charge against French film icon Gerald Depardieu, which was submitted last year but dates back to 2007, has passed its statute of limitations.
Gerald Depardieu, 75, has been accused of sexual harassment and assault by over a dozen women; he refutes these claims. He has also been charged with rape in a separate instance.
Late last month, the Paris prosecutor’s office informed AFP that actor Helene Darras’ criminal complaint, in which she claimed Gerald Depardieu had approached and touched her while they were filming a movie in 2007, had been dismissed.
Gerald Depardieu’s attorneys and Darras were not immediately reachable for comment. Darras told AFP last month that prior to registering her complaint in September, she had previously spoken with investigators in 2022 and the news website Mediapart.
She remarked at the time, “It took me a year to go from talking about what happened to the criminal complaint.”
She did, however, state that she wanted to refute the defense’s claim that their accusations are only the product of eyewitness testimony. She claimed in an interview with France 2 that Gerald Depardieu had touched her buttocks and hips, asked her to come into his changing room, and persisted even after she refused.
In 2020, Gerald Depardieu was charged with rape and sexual assault following a complaint from Charlotte Arnould, another actor, regarding events that occurred in 2018.
The lawyer for Arnould urged Paris prosecutors to look into a tape that was later leaked to France 2 and featured Depardieu making disparaging remarks about women while on a trip to North Korea.
In a different instance, Spanish journalist Ruth Baza filed a criminal complaint in Spain last month, claiming that Depardieu raped her over 30 years ago in Paris. While the complaint faced obstacles due to the statute of limitations in France, Baza pursued it in the hope that it would inspire others to do the same.
Allegations of sexual abuse against Gerald Depardieu have sparked a cultural divide in France, separating the film industry and pitting feminist groups against the actor’s supporters, including President Emmanuel Macron.
