A new twist in the Gérard Depardieu affair. A second complaint for sexual assault against the French actor was filed by the actress Hélène Darras, we learned Wednesday, on the eve of an episode of the program of France 2 "Complement of investigation" devoted to these facts.

Hélène Darras filed a complaint on September 10 against the 74-year-old actor, whom she accuses of sexual assault in 2007, during the filming of the film "Disco", directed by Fabien Onteniente, the Paris prosecutor's office said.

This complaint, which a priori relates to statute-barred facts, is "being analyzed," the same source told AFP, to determine its direction: closure or launch of investigations.

The actress, who had already testified in court and in Mediapart, "wanted to respond to the defense who minimizes our denunciations by saying that they are 'only' testimonies," she explained, alluding to the multiple accusations that have appeared in the press against Gérard Depardieu. The Cyrano actor's lawyer, Christian Saint-Palais, did not respond to requests for comment.

"It took me a year to go from testimony to complaint"

The announcement of this complaint is made in an issue of the investigative magazine "Complement", which will be broadcast on France 2.

Hélène Darras accuses the star of having "groped" her in 2007, when she was 26 years old and an extra in the film "Disco".

During filming, Gérard Depardieu "ran his hand over my hips, over my buttocks" and then "said to me bluntly: 'Do you want to go up to my dressing room?'" The actress tells him "no" but "it doesn't change anything", she says in "Complement": "Between takes, he will continue to grope me".

"It took me a year to go from testimony to complaint," she told AFP. "Going through the door of the police station, telling a police officer that your private parts have been touched, it's not easy, it takes time to think about it," she added.

Already indicted for rape and sexual assault in 2020

In addition, Gérard Depardieu is the subject of a judicial investigation in Paris: he was indicted on December 16, 2020 for rape and sexual assault after another complaint by the actress Charlotte Arnould, who denounced two rapes at the end of August 2018 at the actor's Paris home.

In the summer of 2020, she obtained that the investigation, first closed by the prosecutor's office in June 2019, be entrusted to an investigating judge. Since then, a dozen other women have accused Gérard Depardieu of sexual violence in the press.

The actor, who was confronted this summer by Charlotte Arnould before the investigating judge in charge of the case, was also questioned about these new testimonies, according to a source close to the case.

In early October, he denied the accusations, insisting that he was "neither a rapist nor a predator" in an open letter published in Le Figaro.

"They're big sluts"

Based on a never-before-seen video shot in 2018 during a trip with writer Yann Moix to North Korea, "Complement" also claims that whenever the actor is in the presence of women during this trip, he can't help but make comments of a sexual nature.

Inappropriate remarks, gestures and throat noises mimicking the sexual act, punctuate his exchanges with women. In a stud farm, he says that "women love to ride horses (because) they have their clit rubbing" on the saddle (...) they cum a lot". She continued: "They're big sluts."

As for film sets, several testimonies, including those of Sarah Brooks, in the Mediapart investigation, and Anouk Grinberg, in an interview with Elle magazine in October, point to a "sexualized atmosphere" where omerta reigns.

Complement d'enquête also unearths an interview conducted in 1978 with an American magazine. In it, he says he was involved in rape at the age of nine. "There was nothing wrong with that," he was quoted as saying. Years later, he maintained this in front of a Time Magazine reporter. These allegations have never been verified and are being denied by his relatives.

For the president of the producers' union, Marc Missionnier, the only one who wanted to testify with his face uncovered, "French cinema was not unaware of Gérard Depardieu's problematic behaviour".

With AFP

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