Depardieu to be tried in October for sexual assault

French actor Gerard Depardieu will be tried in October for the sexual assault of two women, the Paris prosecutor’s office has said.

French police questioned the 75-year-old today before releasing him.

In a separate case, Mr Depardieu was charged with rape in 2020 and forced to put his career on hold last autumn as allegations mounted against him.

He denies any wrongdoing.

Police questioned Mr Depardieu today over allegations made by two women that he assaulted them on film sets, one in 2021 and the other in 2014.

The first woman accused him of assaulting her when she was a member of the crew on the 2022 feature film ‘The Green Shutters’.

The set designer, who filed a formal complaint in February, told investigative website Mediapart that Mr Depardieu groped her and made obscene comments as she left the set in a private hotel in Paris.

The second woman alleged the actor groped her and made “inappropriate” remarks while she was an assistant on the set of 2015 film ‘Le Magicien et le Siamois’, she told regional newspaper Le Courrier de l’Ouest.

In 2020, police charged Mr Depardieu with rape and sexual assault after actor Charlotte Arnould alleged he raped her in 2018 when she was 22 and anorexic.

Another sexual assault complaint filed last year by actor Helene Darras, who said Mr Depardieu groped and propositioned her during a 2007 film shoot, has been dropped for being past the statute of limitations.

Spanish journalist and author Ruth Baza said in December that she had filed a criminal complaint in her home country against Mr Depardieu, alleging he raped her in 1995 in Paris.

Despite the events having passed the statute of limitations, she said she decided to contact police in the hope that it would “help other people” to do the same.

Mr Depardieu had long made headlines for antics such as socialising with the leaders of Russia and Belarus, obtaining a Russian passport to protest against a planned tax hike in France, and delaying a 2011 flight after urinating into a bottle that overflowed.

But debate over whether to show his films intensified at the end of last year after a television report showed the actor repeatedly making obscene comments in the presence of a female interpreter during a 2018 trip to North Korea.

His wax sculpture was removed from the Musee Grevin waxwork museum in Paris and Canada’s Quebec region stripped him of its top honour.

Mr Depardieu has made more than 200 films and television series.