Prosecutor calls for trial of Gerard Depardieu on rape charges

Paris prosecutors have requested that actor Gérard Depardieu be brought to trial over rape allegations made against him by actress Charlotte Arnould, French media reported on Thursday.

Arnould filed charges in 2020, claiming that Depardieu raped and assaulted her twice in his Paris home in August 2018. Depardieu, who denies the allegations, lost his appeal to have the court dismiss the case.

Speaking to French broadcaster BFMTV, Arnould's lawyer Carine Durrieu-Diebolt described the request as a “big step forward towards a trial” and noted that Arnould “is now impatiently awaiting the end of the investigation”.

Arnould claims that Depardieu, a friend of her father, raped her twice in the summer of 2018 when she visited his Paris home to seek advice. Arnould was 22 at the time, Depardieu 69. After various legal battles, including the actor's failed attempt to dismiss the case, a Paris investigating judge charged Depardieu with rape and sexual assault and released him without judicial supervision. A judge has yet to rule on the request for a new trial.

In April, the public prosecutor confirmed that the Green Card And Cyrano de Bergerac The actor is on trial in another case of sexual assault. Two women claim he attacked them on the set of a French film. The green shutters in 2021. The trial is scheduled to begin in October.

Depardieu denies any wrongdoing in these and the many other allegations of sexual harassment that have been made against him in recent years. In an open letter published in the conservative The Figaro In an interview with the newspaper last fall, he suggested that his actions had been misunderstood.