Gérard Depardieu sentenced to 18 months suspended prison sentence for sexual assault

By The New Obs with AFP

Published on May 13, 2025 at 10:34 a.m. , updated on May 13, 2025 at 11:12 a.m.

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The Paris Criminal Court has found Gérard Depardieu guilty of sexual assault on a film set in 2021, according to at least one of the two women who accused him.

Two months after a trial marked by heated debates and a brutal defense , the judgment against Gérard Depardieu was delivered this Tuesday, May 13. The 76-year-old French actor, represented at the hearing by his lawyer, was found guilty of sexually assaulting Amélie, now 54, and Sarah (name changed), 34, respectively a set designer and assistant director on the film "Les Volets verts" by Jean Becker.

The actor will appeal, his lawyer Jérémie Assous announced after the hearing. Assous strongly criticized the court's decision, arguing that "from the moment you are accused today in a so-called sexual assault case, you are automatically convicted."

The criminal court also imposed a two-year ineligibility sentence and his inclusion in the sex offenders register, in accordance with the prosecution's submissions. In his closing remarks, following the four-day trial, the guilt of the actor with 250 films was beyond doubt for the public prosecutor, who had requested "a sentence that takes into account the total lack of self-incrimination" of the defendant.

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At the end of March, the prosecution requested an eighteen-month suspended prison sentence for the actor, considering that the attacks reported by the two women were indeed "intentional." The public prosecutor also requested that Gérard Depardieu be subject to compulsory psychological care, that he be declared ineligible for a period of two years and placed on the sex offenders register.

In court, Amélie, 54, with mid-length blond hair, recounted having discussed the film's set with the actor, explaining that she was looking for specific parasols for the scenes filmed in the south of France. The conversation was innocuous until Gérard Depardieu, who was sitting down, "closed his legs" around her and grabbed her hips. "He's pinning me down, he's very strong and he's kneading," Amélie continued, recalling "his big face," "his red, very excited eyes," and the actor's salacious remarks: "Come and touch my big parasol, I'm going to put it in your pussy!" The content of these remarks is reminiscent of certain sequences broadcast by "Complément d'enquête " at the end of 2023.

"I dispute the facts!" Gérard Depardieu reacted strongly . "There are vices I don't know about," exclaimed the actor, supported every day in the room by his daughter Roxane, his ex-partner Karine Silla and the actor Vincent Perez. "I don't see why I would have fun groping a woman, her buttocks, her breasts, I'm not a frotteur in the metro," he added.

The actor who played Cyrano de Bergerac also denied any assault on the second complainant, an assistant on the film. "I may have brushed against her with my back in the corridor, but I didn't touch her," Gérard Depardieu insisted.

Sarah (name changed), now 34, recounted accompanying the actor from the dressing room to the set. "It was dark and at the end of the street, he put his hand on my buttock, he placed it quietly," she mimed in court, a few meters from Gérard Depardieu. The young woman also recounted two other assaults.

In court, Gérard Depardieu spoke of his love for women, his respect for "femininity" but not for "women who are in hysteria ." His faithful friend from the cinema, Fanny Ardant, came to testify on his behalf . "I have never witnessed an action that I would have found shocking," she declared, adding before leaving the courtroom: "I know that you can say no to Gérard."

During the four days of the trial, the lawyers for the civil parties denounced the ever-present tension and the aggressive methods of Gérard Depardieu's defense . "Liars," "venal , " "hysterical," the actor's lawyer, Jérémie Assous, had repeatedly called them, pointing the finger at Amélie and Sarah.

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