French prosecutors have called for film star Gérard Depardieu to stand trial over allegations that he raped a young actress over two days at his Paris home.
The 75-year-old’s alleged victim, Charlotte Arnould, said Thursday’s announcement was “a huge step forward”.
Ms Arnould, now 28, claims she was raped and sexually assaulted by Mr Depardieu in August 2018.
A source working with Paris prosecutors said it was “requested that Mr Depardieu be referred to the departmental criminal court to be tried for rape by digital penetration and sexual assault on August 7 and 13, 2018.”
The investigation has been going on for a full six years, with evidence including CCTV footage of Depardieu performing a sex act on Ms Arnould at his mansion in August 2018.
Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, Ms Arnould’s lawyer, said the request for trial was “the result of a long investigation that made it possible to gather the elements that corroborate my client's words.”
Ms Durrieu-Diebolt added: “For her, it is a huge step forward full of hope, while she waits for the order of the investigating judge that will close the investigation.”
The complaint by Ms Arnoud was initially dismissed, but then reopened when further evidence emerged.
Counsel for Mr Depardieu did not immediately respond to the call for a trial, but the Green Card and Last Metro star has continually claimed that sex with Ms Arnould was consensual.
Mr Depardieu is already set to face another trial in October for alleged sexual assaults against two different women during a film shoot in 2021.
Last year, Mr Depardieu broke his silence over claims that he is a serial sex abuser saying: “I am neither a rapist nor a predator.”
Accusing enemies of subjecting him to a “lynching” in the media, he expressed his anger in an open letter to the French press.
Ms Arnould renounced her legal right to anonymity at the end of 2021, following Mr Depardieu being charged with rape and sexual assault.
Last year, a criminal enquiry was also opened into the suspected suicide of a French actress who had accused Mr Depardieu of sexual violence.
It was feared that the last hours of Emmanuelle Debever, 60, may have been linked to the multiple abuse accusations levelled by women against Mr Depardieu.
She died on December 7th – the exact day a new documentary entitled Gérard Depardieu: The Fall of the Ogre was broadcast across France.
It contained disturbing details of an alleged attack by Mr Depardieu on Ms Debever, when she was still a teenager.
In December, another French actress filed a formal sex attack complaint against Mr Depardieu, saying he treated her like “a piece of meat”.
Paris prosecutors confirmed that Hélène Darras, 43, reported Mr Depardieu in September.
The pair appeared together in the 2007 film Disco, when Darras was 26, and allegedly assaulted.
Waiving her legal right to anonymity, Ms Darras told the same Further Investigation (Complément d’enquete) documentary series: “He [Depardieu] is unmanageable.
“He looks at me as if I were a piece of meat. I have an ultra-tight dress, he pulls me closer to him by the waist, then he runs his hand over my hips, over my bum.”
And in December 2023, Spanish journalist and writer Ruth Baza filed a complaint in Spain against the actor for rape, for acts dating back to 1995 in Paris.
In the same month, French President Emmanuel Macron sparked fury by defending Mr Depardieu.
Mr Macron appeared on a TV chat show and said he detested the actor being subjected to a “manhunt”.
