FRENCH actor Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women by a Paris court.
He was convicted of groping the women during filming of the 2021 film Les Volets Verts.
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His victims were a 54-year-old set dresser and a 34-year-old assistant.
The case was seen as a major post-#MeToo test in France.
Both women said they had been scared to speak out at the time and had been intimidated by the actor.
His victims said he would use obscene and explicit language towards them before sexually assaulting them.
One, named only as Amélie, said the actor had trapped her between his legs and ran his hands over her body.
“He terrified me – he looked like a madman,” she said.
She said he grabbed her hips then started palpating her behind and in front, around.
To show what she had experienced, she ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area.
She told the court that the actor’s attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behaviour at work.
The other plaintiff said Depardieu groped her during three separate incidents on the film set.
Depardieu rejected the accusations during the four-day trial in March.
He acknowledged that he had used vulgar and sexualised language on set and that he grabbed the set dresser’s hips during an argument.
However, he denied that his behaviour was sexual.
During the trial, Depardieu admitted that he had initially denied ever touching her – before then saying he grabbed her hips to stop himself from falling over, and then that he had done so to get her attention.
She described his account as “obviously completely false” – and added that she was mentally scarred by the incident.
Carine Diebolt, the lawyer representing one victim, told the court the actor had targeted women who did not have a high profile.
“He is strong with the weak, and weak with the strong,” she said.
Diebolt told Sky News: “These women were put in danger.
“This is about a line of offences that he committed over many years that were tolerated by the world of cinema because it was Gérard Depardieu.
“Because the financial benefits he brings to the industry are so substantial.
“He did make some excellent films, but all men are equal before the law.”
Depardieu, who has appeared in more than 200 movies, has been accused of misconduct by more than 20 women.
Some other cases were dropped due to lack of evidence or the statute of limitations.
This trial was widely seen as a landmark moment for the French film industry in seeing victims of abuses’ claims taken seriously.
A French parliamentary report found last month that sexual violence and sexual harassment are “endemic” in the country’s entertainment industry.
Emmanuelle Dancourt, president of MeToo Media, told Sky News: “Depardieu is a man with a lot of money around him.
“Everybody could see Depardieu talking badly to women, putting his hand in the wrong place on a woman’s body and saying things that are wrong.
“But Gerard Depardieu’s best friend is silence.
“In France, you have a wall of silence, and this means impunity. If you are a man with a lot of power and a lot of money, you can do whatever you want.”
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