French prosecutor requests rape charges against film director

French prosecutors said on Wednesday they had requested to charge well-known arthouse film director Benoit Jacquot with the rape of actors Isild Le Besco and Julia Roy in a high-profile #MeToo case that has rocked French cinema.

The plea came following a spate of allegations against several men in the French film industry, which critics say has served as a cover for abuse for too long.

Jacquot and another filmmaker, Jacques Doillon, were summoned to custody on Monday morning for a two-day interrogation. They are accused of sexually abusing much younger actresses who starred in their films. Both deny the charges.

Investigators launched an investigation after 52-year-old Judith Godreche filed a complaint against Jacquot earlier this year, alleging that he raped her during a relationship lasting several years that began in the 1980s, when she was 14 and he was 25 years her senior.

The prosecution has not sought charges in connection with Godreche’s allegations because they are time-barred, she and her lawyer said.

However, this was the case for two other actors.

Le Besco, 41, had filed a complaint alleging rape during her own relationship with Jacquot, which also began when she was a minor.

And Roy, 34, had accused the director, 42 years her senior, of sexual assault in “a context of violence and moral coercion that lasted several years,” according to a source familiar with the case. She starred in four of his films released between 2016 and 2021.

– “I feel heard” –

Prosecutors asked an investigating judge to bring charges against Jacquot for “rape, sexual assault and violence” that he is suspected of having committed against Roy between 2013 and 2018, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

They also called for charges of “rape of a minor by a person in authority” and “rape by a partner,” which Le Besco is believed to have committed between 1998 and 2000 and then in 2007.

They demanded the release of Jacquot, who had spent two nights in custody, but who should remain under judicial supervision.

Jacquot’s lawyer Julia Minkowski declined to comment, but stressed on Monday that her client was innocent until proven guilty.

Godreche said on Instagram that she felt “heard,” even though no charges were filed in her own case.

Her lawyer, Laure Heinich, said she had taken note of the request to bring charges against Jacquot “for acts of the same nature as those committed against Judith Godreche, which are time-barred in her case”.

Roy and Le Besco’s lawyers did not immediately comment.

The other director, 80-year-old Doillon, was released on Tuesday evening “for medical reasons,” the public prosecutor’s office said. Further measures have yet to be decided.

His lawyer declined to comment.

Godreche had accused Doillon of sexually harassing her during a film shoot when she was 15 years old.

Le Besco claimed he made advances to her during work meetings, and another actress, 46-year-old Anna Mouglalis, claimed the filmmaker forcibly kissed her in 2011.

– ‘Part of a system’ –

Le Besco said in May that she did not expect her complaint to lead to anything, but that it showed that Jacquot had treated her “like other young women” and that the abuse was “part of a system.”

Godreche has become a leading voice in France’s #MeToo movement since accusing Jacquot of manipulating and abusing her as a teenager.

After calling for the creation of a film regulator, French parliamentarians voted in May to set up a commission to investigate sexual and gender-based violence in the cultural sector.

In rare cases the justice system was passed through.

The head of France’s largest cinema institution, Dominique Boutonnat, resigned on Friday after being convicted of sexually abusing his godson in 2020. He will serve a one-year prison sentence at home.

The 75-year-old screen star Gérard Depardieu will have to appear in court in October on charges of sexually harassing two women.

The actor, whose successful career includes the 1990 romantic comedy “Green Card,” was also charged in 2020 with the rape of a much younger actress in 2018.

He denies all allegations.

According to a recent study, 94 percent of lawsuits alleging rape in France were dismissed between 2012 and 2021, mostly on the grounds that the reasons were “insufficiently specified.”

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