Paris (AFP)

Accused by the actress Adèle Haenel of sexual assault when she was a teenager, the director Christophe Ruggia acknowledged Wednesday the "mistake" of having played with her "pygmalions", but refuted any violence while justice s' is seized of this case shock for the French cinema, two years after #MeToo.

The Paris prosecutor's office has opened a preliminary investigation for "sexual assault" on minors under 15 years of age "per person in authority" and "sexual harassment". The investigation was entrusted to the Central Office for the Repression of Violence against Persons (OCRVP).

The star of "Portrait of the girl on fire" did not complain, regretting Monday live on the site of Mediapart that there is "so few" convictions in this type of case and denouncing "violence systemic approach to women in the justice system ".

Christophe Ruggia continues to deny any aggression that the actress accuses, but admits on Wednesday that he "made the mistake of playing the pygmalions with the misunderstandings and obstacles that such a posture arouses", in a right of reply to Mediapart, who pulled the case out.

"I did not see that my adulation and the hopes I had placed in her could have appeared to her, given her young age, as painful at times, and if she can, I can ask to forgive me, "he continues.

- "Social exclusion" -

"My social exclusion is underway and I can not do anything to escape it," the filmmaker complains.The Middle Ages had invented the punishment of the pillory but it was the punishment of a culprit who had been sentenced by the courts. we are setting up, without any trial, media pillories that are just as crucifixing and painful ".

The 30-year-old French actress, who won two César awards, challenged the director, with whom she shot at the age of 13 her first film, "Les Diables", in a survey published Sunday by Mediapart and a interview filmed the next day.

Adèle Haenel denounced "the hold" that Christophe Ruggia would have exerted on her during the preparation and filming of the film, then a "permanent sexual harassment", repeated "touching" and "forced kisses in the neck", while she was 12 to 15 years old.

The Keeper of the Seals Nicole Belloubet had regretted Wednesday morning on France Inter that she did not file a complaint. "I think on the contrary, especially with what she said, that she should seize justice, which seems to me to be able to take into account such situations". But the prosecution was self-grasping.

Will this procedure and the wave of emotion provoked to break the omerta around these issues in French cinema, two years after the launch of the #MeToo movement?

- "A silence so heavy" -

The reactions continue to flow. The ARP (Authors, directors, producers) supports Wednesday "Adèle Haenel in this brave step", as the SPI (Union of independent producers). "It does not need anymore that the cinema, the audio-visual one, the spectacle are spaces tolerant + in the name of the art + the destruction of the bodies and the lives of those who manufacture them", according to the CGT show.

The Society of Film Directors (SRF), professional association with some 300 members, had on Monday written off Christophe Ruggia.

Actresses are also on the rise. "A great admiration for Adele Haenel, who speaks for those who are in the shadows ...", testified the actress Julie Gayet on Instagram.

"Adele, your courage is a gift of unparalleled generosity," commented the Oscar-winning Marion Cotillard. "You break a silence so heavy".

"I think it's a kind of turning point, it's the first time in France that an internationally known actress, who works a lot and has a hell of a price, speaks on this subject," says Véronique Le Bris, founder of the site cine-woman.fr, for which "it will necessarily have consequences".

For the academic Iris Brey, specialist of the representation of the kind in the cinema, "until now, in France, one did not really want to have these conversations post #MeToo".

© 2019 AFP