Coup de théâtre this Friday morning at the Paris Correctional Court. After two and a half years of legal proceedings, actor Gérard Depardieu has finally dropped his lawsuit against France Télévisions and the show “Complément d’enquête”. This was announced at the opening of the hearing by his new lawyer Delphine Meillet.
The 77-year-old actor denounced a dishonest editing in a sequence of less than a minute taken from the fifty-four that make up an episode of the show titled “Gérard Depardieu: the fall of the ogre”, broadcast in December 2023.
Filmed in 2018 in a stud farm in North Korea, a country where he had gone with Yann Moix for the 70th anniversary of the dictatorial regime, it shows the actor making obscene remarks with sexual connotations. As a girl of about ten years old passes on screen on a horse, he can be heard saying, “If he gallops, she enjoys. (…) If he makes her gallop, she gets wet, she enjoys.”
During a hearing in October, Gérard Depardieu’s former lawyer, Jérémie Assous, did not hesitate to speak of an “illicit montage” that had “professionally killed” his client. But “the ogre” of French cinema seems to have changed strategy with his new counsel, Delphine Meillet.
It was through her that he communicated his decision to drop the case this Friday. This decision also concerns the president of France Télévisions Delphine Ernotte-Cunci, the authors of the report, and the production company Hikari.
“France Télévisions ‘welcomes’ this outcome,” the audiovisual group immediately congratulated themselves. “Two expertises concluded that the actor did make sexually suggestive statements towards a girl and ruled out any fraudulent manipulation of the images,” France Télévisions added.
“After two and a half years of media and judicial harassment, Gérard Depardieu finally acknowledges that there was no illicit editing and that he did indeed sexualize a girl in North Korea, by dropping, the day of the trial, his lawsuit against “Complément d’enquête”,” rejoiced the show’s presenter Tristan Waleckx.
In a statement sent to Le Parisien, Delphine Meillet mentions a “decision, thoughtfully considered”, while stating that “the time for appeasement has come”. “Gérard Depardieu nevertheless maintains his position regarding the lack of objectivity in the report and scenes, the subject of the trial,” she continues in the text.
“The multiplication of hearings and expertises has represented a considerable burden for Gérard Depardieu,” emphasizes the lawyer, before specifying that her client “refuses to spend his time fighting windmills.”
This marks the end of the case between “Complément d’enquête” and Gérard Depardieu. The actor’s denials had been widely echoed by the media, especially those of the Bolloré group. “It is a case in which everyone’s beliefs will remain,” concluded lawyer Delphine Meillet.
For the justice system, the case now boils down to the lawsuit by Yann Moix notably for hidden work and breach of trust against France Télévisions and the production company Hikari, which had produced the documentary never broadcast in North Korea and used its images in an episode of “Complément d’enquête.” The writer, on the other hand, still contests the editing and the “soiling” of his work. “I had a work of fiction stolen from me, to make a report against an actor,” he recalled in court.
Gérard Depardieu will return to court in November for the appeal of his conviction to 18 months suspended sentence for sexually assaulting two women in 2021 on the set of the film “Les Volets verts” by Jean Becker. Furthermore, his referral to the criminal court in Paris for rape of French actress Charlotte Arnould was ordered at the end of August. But the actor has appealed this referral which will be examined by the appeals court.
In December 2023, just a few days after the broadcast of “Complément d’enquête,” Emmanuel Macron had defended the star who “makes France proud.” “Everyone attacks the same person, saying the worst based on a report, without even giving him the opportunity to defend himself,” the head of state was outraged, referring to this “polemic” about the editing and “the words that were out of sync with the images.”
