Paris (EFE)
The testimony of this new victim, published this Monday by the public channel FranceInfo, corresponds to an assistant director who worked twice with Depardieu.
It includes inappropriate comments in front of the rest of the team, sexual propositions (even paid) and touching, but also an incident in which the actor showed her his genitals and blocked her in a corridor.
“She dropped her pants and showed me her sex. I got scared and got out of the room as best I could. He caught up with me in the hallway, he pinned me against the wall, but his stomach was blocking everything, so he couldn’t do anything,” the victim said.
The young woman shared her testimony with other members of the team, who confirmed to FranceInfo both their discomfort during filming and having heard the account of these attacks at the end of filming.
Accused of sexual harassment
Depardieu had already been accused of sexual harassment on the set of different productions between 2004 and 2022 by 13 other women, who entrusted their story to the investigative journalistic portal Médiapart last April.
These accusations were added to a judicial investigation against Depardieu for an alleged rape in 2018, opened as a result of a complaint filed by the actress Charlotte Arnould.
Of thirteen testimonies (some of them anonymous and others under pseudonyms) published by Médiapart, three alleged victims had already provided their testimony to the Justice, but without presenting complaints.
Faced with these accusations, the lawyers of the protagonist of films such as “Cyrano de Bergerac” (1990), who was one of the best-known faces worldwide in French cinema for years, deny “any criminal conduct.”
Along with accusations of improper sexual behavior, this actor from the “Asterix and Obelix” saga (1999-2012), who is currently 74 years old, has also made headlines in recent years for his controversial political positions.
In 2013, he adopted Russian nationality in protest of the fiscal policies of the then-president, the socialist François Hollande, and regularly praised Vladimir Putin’s Russia as “a great democracy.” However, he has spoken out against the invasion of Ukraine.