French star actor Gérard Depardieu was handed an 18-month suspended prison sentence and placed on the national database of sex offenders after he was found guilty on Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in September 2021.
Judges at the Paris Criminal Court convicted the 76-year-old of groping a 54-year-old set dresser – identified as Amelie – and a 34-year-old assistant director during the filming of Les Volets Verts (“The Green Shutters”).
Depardieu's lawyers said they will appeal the decision.
During the trial in March, Amelie told the court that Depardieu's entourage of dresser, make-up artist and bodyguard were absent when she was in charge of escorting him from the dressing room to the set.
"We left the dressing rooms, it was dark and at the end of the street, he put his hand on my buttock, he put it down quietly."
She said she was then assaulted twice: touched on the buttocks and the breasts. On the last two occasions, she told the court: "I said no!"
The assistant director, named as Sarah said that Depardieu groped her buttocks and her breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.
Sympathy
After the verdict, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, Amelie's lawyer, told reporters: "I hope that this is the end of impunity for an artist in the film industry.
"With this decision, we can no longer say [that Gérard Depardieu] is not a sexual abuser. My thoughts are with the other victims who are under the statute of limitations and with the victims who took the stand."
Tuesday's decision coincides with the start of the 2025 Cannes Film Festival. In 1990, Depardieu was bestowed with the festival's best actor prize for his towering performance in Jean-Paul Rappeneau's "Cyrano de Bergerac".
He went on to act in Peter Weir's Hollywood movie "Green Card" and featured in other international productions such as Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet" in 1996 and Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" in 2012.
Depardieu is the highest-profile figure caught up in France's response to the #MeToo movement.
He has been accused of improper behaviour by around 20 women, but this is the first case to come to court.
He has also been indicted in another case following a rape complaint filed by actress Charlotte Arnould. He has denied the allegations.
