Europe 1 with AFP / Photo credits: Ludovic MARIN / POOL / AFP 4:27 p.m., March 6, 2024

The Nanterre prosecutor's office indicates this Wednesday that the president of the National Cinema Center (CNC) Dominique Boutonnat will be tried in June for sexual assault on his godson.

“The planned date for this trial is currently set for June 14, 2024,” said the public prosecutor.

New explosion in French cinema.

The president of the National Cinema Center (CNC), Dominique Boutonnat, whose removal is demanded by activists and actress Judith Godrèche, will be tried for sexual assault on his godson.

"The planned date for this trial is currently set for June 14" in Nanterre, the public prosecutor told AFP on Wednesday, confirming information from the L'Informé website.

The prosecution only retained the sexual assault

Dominique Boutonnat, now aged 54 and who vigorously contests the alleged facts, was accused in October 2020 by his godson of acts dating back to August of the same year, during a vacation in Greece, when the latter was aged 21.

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In the complaint consulted by AFP, the young man accuses his godfather, with whom he has no family connection, of having tried to “masturbate” him on the night of August 3, 2020, after having bathed naked in the swimming pool.

“I masturbate him so that he stops touching me,” he denounces, assuring that his godfather then tried to force him to perform oral sex.

Dominique Boutonnat had been indicted for attempted rape, but the prosecution ultimately dismissed this characterization and only retained the sexual assault.

Dominique Boutonnat talks about “consensual kisses”

From the beginning, the president of the CNC has spoken of "consensual kisses", "gestures of affection which he stopped when he felt from his godson that this gesture could have degenerated into something else", had affirmed in 2022 his lawyer Emmanuel Marsigny, announcing to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation.

This complaint was closed for insufficiently characterized offense in September 2022, specifies the prosecution.

Despite his indictment, Dominique Boutonnat was reappointed to his post by the government in July 2022.

The CGT-spectacle called for his resignation in October 2022, and the 50/50 collective, which campaigns for equality, parity and diversity in the film and audiovisual industry, deplored his renewal.

“At a time when we collectively need to improve the tools to fight against gender-based and sexual violence and harassment (...) how can we be heard when, at the head of the main organization in the sector, there is a person herself- same indictment for facts described by the courts as 'sexual assault'?", the union then questioned.

Judith Godrèche pleaded before the Senate for the “withdrawal” of Dominique Boutonnat from his functions

Judith Godrèche, who filed a complaint against the filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon for facts dating back to her adolescence and campaigns for the protection of children against sexual violence, particularly in the world of French cinema, pleaded on February 29 during a a hearing in the Senate for the “withdrawal” of Dominique Boutonnat from his functions.

For the actress, with Dominique Boutonnat as president, the CNC is a place where "producers go laughing because they say to themselves 'it's funny, I'm going to go and do training against sexual violence at the interior of an institution whose president is himself accused of sexual violence'", she told the senators.

Questioned by AFP, neither the CNC nor Dominique Boutonnat's lawyer wished to react.

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A policy to combat gender-based and sexual violence at the CNC since 2020

Dominique Boutonnat, a former film producer, has been at the head of the very powerful CNC since 2019, an organization under the supervision of the Ministry of Culture, responsible for supporting and regulating the cinema sector.

Since 2020, the CNC has developed an entire policy to combat gender-based and sexual violence, in a sector regularly shaken by cases in recent years.

Mandatory training in the prevention of this violence has notably been put in place for companies in the sector, and has become a condition for receiving public aid.

In 2019, the appointment of Dominique Boutonnat had already aroused concern in the cinema community, some of which believed that this donor to Emmanuel Macron's first electoral campaign wanted to impose a logic based on profitability, endangering the cinema of 'author.

The announcement of this referral to trial comes at a time when the world of cinema is experiencing an explosion, shaken by a succession of accusations of sexual violence, from actresses but also from actors.