French actor Gerard Depardieu Photo: VALERIE ACH
The arrest of France's most famous movie star on two charges of recent sexual assault should be a reason, under any normal circumstances, shock and outrage. Unfortunately, this star turned out to be Gerard Depardieu, which means that the news can only cause numb disgust.
A 53-year-old woman claims Depardieu, then 73, grabbed her and groped her breasts while filming Green Shutters (2022), while a second woman accused him of sexual assault on the same set. A third woman alleged he groped her “all over her body” and made inappropriate remarks while she was helping on the set of The Wizard and the Siamese (2015), but that charge was dropped because the statute of limitations had expired. Depardieu denies all charges.
The problem is that we have been here so many times before – so often that the defense of Depardieu by powerful factions of the French establishment has become as routine as the accusations leveled against him.
Over the past year, at least 15 women have reported sexual assault or rape. Last December, when the documentary Depardieu: Fall of the Ogre was shown on public channel France 2, he of course couldn't resist detailing why that description was considered appropriate. First, it is clear that the once beloved icon sexually harassed a translator and made sexual remarks toward a 10-year-old child during a 2018 visit to Pyongyang to celebrate the 70th anniversary of North Korea's statehood.
Depardieu receives a career achievement award in Egypt, 2020. Photo: AMMAR ABD RABBO
The film also features an interview with actress Charlotte Arnoux, who brought two rape charges against Depardieu in 2018. Both of these alleged attacks took place at Depardieu's Paris home the same year, when Arn was 22 and Depardieu, a friend of her father, was 70. Although Depardieu was formally charged on both counts in 2020, the case is still being processed at a snail's pace. through the French courts. The actor's lawyer said he “strongly denies” the accusations.
Like all the other accusations brought against him and brought forward over the decades, Depardieu categorically rejects Arnoux's version: “I never, never insulted a woman,” he wrote in an open letter last October, asserting that he is “neither a rapist nor a predator.” “Hurting a woman is like kicking your own mother’s womb.”
On the same day that the documentary aired, one of Depardieu's early accusers, Emmanuelle Debever, was found dead in the Seine, the victim of an apparent suicide. They starred in the historical epic Danton (1982) when Debever was 19 years old.
President Macron defended Depardieu Photo: Getty Images
Her accusation came in the form of a Facebook post in 2019, in which she claimed he fondled her while they were side by side in a carriage scene: “This monster let himself have plenty of fun during filming, making the most of the intimacy… Sticking his put a thick paw under my skirt.” It is believed that listening to her story, as recounted in the documentary, led to Debever's death.
The international reaction after the revelation was aired was swift and merciless. Depardieu became the first person to be stripped of Canada's Order of Quebec award, and Swiss broadcaster RTS has stopped showing films in which he stars.
In France, however, there are growing calls to strip Depardieu of the Legion of Honor, France's highest honor. the Order of Merit, which was awarded to him in 2016, was blocked at the very top. Although Rome's Culture Minister Abdoul Malak said he was disgusted by Depardieu's sexist remarks and said his behavior was a “disgrace to France,” Emmanuel Macron had a different view.
Depardieu in the film “Jean de Florette”, 1987. Photo: Film Stills
Asked by a France 5 interviewer about the possibility of stripping Depardieu of his title, Macron replied: “You will never see me participating in the manhunt… [I] hate such things.” He further explained: “I’m a big fan of Gerard Depardieu; he is an amazing actor… a genius of his art. He made France famous throughout the world. And I say this as President and as a citizen, he makes France proud.”
Depardieu's status as a megastar and at one time France's most sought-after acting export to Hollywood is certainly firmly established. He was nominated for the Best Actor Cesar Streep Award 17 times, winning twice, in 1981 and 1991. He solidified his position as a national treasure around the time of Jean de Florette (1986), before becoming an English-language hit writer. with Peter Weir's Green Card (1990), an Oscar nomination for Cyrano de Bergerac (also 1990) and playing Christopher Columbus for Ridley Scott in the epic flop 1492: Conquest of Paradise (1992). A ten-year string of roles followed in American studios, be it imaginary friends (Phony), sneaky furriers (102 Dalmatians) or burly musketeers (The Man in the Iron Mask).
Rather than try to pursue a career as a polyglot, Depardieu instead made the bizarre post-millennial transition to friendship with Vladimir Putin. In 2012, he moved to Belgium as a tax exile to avoid the 75 percent “super tax” that then-President Francois Hollande—much more of a critic of Depardieu than Macron—was imposing on the super-rich in France.
Putin immediately granted him Russian citizenship, which he happily accepted. He says the reason he gets along so well with Putin (which prompted online memes of them rubbing noses) is because “we could both be bullies.”
Opinion about Depardieu remains sharply divided in the French film industry, with Macron's view enjoying considerable support. One petition, published in the right-wing newspaper Le Figaro, entitled “Don't erase Gérard Depardieu”, attempted to condemn what it called the actor's “lynching” and was signed by many of his friends and former associates, including the country's president. first lady Carla Bruni, Charlotte Rampling and Depardieu's ex-wife Carole Bouquet.
However, when it turned out that the author of this text was a little-known actor Yannis Ezziadi, writing for the ultra-conservative magazine Causeur, which, by all accounts, close to Depardieu's daughter Julie, some of the signatories distanced themselves from what they gave their names to – among them Bouquet, film critic Serge Toubiana and director Jacques Weber.
In the meantime, several more counter-petitions followed. The most successful of them collected 8,000 signatures, claiming that Ezziadi's text supporting Depardieu “spit in the face of his accusers.” Another petition, entitled “Appeal to the Old World”, received the support of celebrities such as Anouk Greenberg, an actress who not only starred with Depardieu in the films “Green Shutters” and “Merci la Vita” (1981), but also has a son with the director Bertrand's last film. Blier, one of Depardieu's most prominent collaborators and allies. Part of the text read: “No one wants to erase an artist. But Gérard Depardieu's talent does not allow for humiliating behavior.”
Greenberg described how she and others on the set of Green Shutters were “subjected to his obscene nonsense from morning to evening.” telling Agence France-Presse that “when film producers hire Depardieu to star in a film, they know they are hiring an abuser.” > Depardieu’s meeting with Putin in 2013 Photo: MIKHAIL KLIMENTYEV
Other allegations were not brought against Depardieu as criminal charges, in some cases due to the statute of limitations under French law. This was the case with actress Hélène Darras, whose complaint dates back to the filming of the film Disco in 2007. Spanish journalist Ruth Baza also came forward in 2023 to report on an incident that occurred in 1995 when she was 23 years old. is an old journalist, and she claims that he kissed and fondled her without her consent.
Depardieu was released the same day he was arrested and will face criminal trial in October. It remains to be seen whether the latest allegations will lead to any kind of turning point: his career has featured a series of supposed turning points. Although Depardieu has scaled back his film commitments (there has been no starring role since Green Shutters two years ago and the delayed chef drama Umami), he has never been convicted or slipped out of the industry's grasp. for more than a short time. .
Legal evidence of wrongdoing may be required for the likes of Macron to abandon their hero-worship, but given the notoriously high bar for prosecuting sexual assault cases, it may be sends a terrible message to the French public. about how the reputations of famous men are guarded almost religiously, rather than the safety and authority of women. The ogre may reel with each new dark complaint, but he still has a long way to go.
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