More than a year after the filing of her rape complaint against the sacred monster of the cinema Gérard Depardieu, 71 years old, a young actress in her twenties gets an examining magistrate to relaunch the investigations .
The young woman accuses Gérard Depardieu of having sexually abused her on two occasions, on August 7 and 13, 2018, during a rehearsal for a play, at the actor's Parisian home, a mansion in the 6th arrondissement. borough.
Read also: Depardieu accused of rape, the prosecution asks an investigating judge to resume the case
She had filed a complaint with the gendarmerie of Lambesc (Bouches-du-Rhône) in the last days of August 2018. The Aix-en-Provence prosecutor's office had opened a preliminary investigation before quickly relinquishing it in favor of of the Paris prosecutor's office.
The investigations had been entrusted to the third district of the judicial police (DPJ).
Gérard Depardieu had been heard in open hearing by the police.
Nine months later, on June 4, 2019, the complaint was dismissed, "
the numerous investigations carried out
" having "
not made it possible to characterize the offenses denounced in all their constituent elements
", explained the prosecution.
Read also: The investigation for rape and sexual assault targeting Gérard Depardieu closed
To relaunch the investigations, the young woman filed a complaint with the constitution of civil party.
The complaint with the constitution of civil party is a recourse allowing the quasi-automatic designation of an investigating judge to restart the investigations.
It is by this way that the investigations into accusations of rape were relaunched in Paris against the director Luc Besson or the Minister of the Interior Gérald Darmanin, also after the classification of preliminary investigations.
Regarding Gérard Depardieu, the Paris prosecutor's office, which can in a few rare cases oppose this relaunch of the investigation, had issued on July 31 an introductory indictment paving the way for the appointment of this investigating judge.
According to a judicial source, the latter was appointed on August 19 to examine this complaint.
"
I was not informed
" of the appointment of an examining magistrate, responded to AFP Me Hervé Témime, the lawyer for the French cinema star, who disputes these accusations.
"
It is a non-event, being an automatic decision
," added the lawyer.
Expected hearings
"
My client took note of the opening of the judicial information and the appointment of a magistrate
", declared her lawyer Me Élodie Tuaillon-Hibon, requested by AFP.
"
She renews her confidence in the courts, at whose disposal she stands, and hopes to approach the various stages of the investigation in the near future in calm and respect
", she specified.
The investigating magistrate seized of the case should now be called upon to hear the various protagonists of the case.
When the initial complaint was revealed in 2018, the actor, who had obtained a César for "
The Last Metro
" by François Truffaut (1980), had been able to count on the support of producer Dominique Besnehard.
Revealed in 1974 in
Bertrand Blier's
“
Valseuses
”, Gérard Depardieu has played multiple characters, including most of the great heroes of national literature, from Cyrano de Bergerac to Jean Valjean des “
Misérables
”.
Father of four children, including actor Guillaume Depardieu who died in 2008, he has acquired immense international notoriety over the course of his career, despite his outings and slippages that have sometimes hit the headlines.
Read also: Élise Ventre, ex-wife of Guillaume Depardieu, died at 47
Having become a winegrower and entrepreneur in gastronomy, he also led a discreet career as a singer.
Mr. Depardieu, to whom President Vladimir Poutine granted Russian citizenship in 2013, will become the hero of an animated series for adults, "
Only Depardieu knows!"
".
In this series of 52 3-minute episodes, whose development has just started, he lends his voice to a character sketched by the cartoonist Mathieu Sapin, telling anecdotes about his life.
In the fall of 2017, the revelation of the numerous rapes and sexual assaults committed on actresses by the American producer Harvey Weinstein, had led to a liberation of the voice of women.
After the cinema, the wave #MeToo had also touched in particular the circles of politics, media and sport.