- Head's 'good night at office' after century seals win over England
- Dubois seeks legitimacy with Joshua scalp
- Rate cut could lift consumer spirits before US elections
- Last-gasp Gimenez strike sends Atletico past Leipzig
- Barca stumble at Monaco after early red card
- Raya heroics save Arsenal in Champions League opener at Atalanta
- Guardians beat Twins to secure MLB playoff berth
- Jihadist attack in Mali capital killed more than 70: security sources
- Alonso hails 'efficient' Leverkusen after Feyenoord rout
- Ex-Man United striker Anthony Martial joins AEK Athens
- NFL unbeatens meet as Texans visit Vikings, Steelers host Chargers
- Head's hundred seals Australia win over England in 1st ODI after Labuschagne strikes
- Dream debut for Wirtz as Leverkusen thump dire Feyenoord
- Myanmar flood death toll climbs to 293: state media
- Israel army says West Bank air strike kills 4 militants
- LIV golfers get green light for US Ryder Cup team, PGA Championship
- US accuses social media giants of 'vast surveillance'
- Ten Hag to bed Hojlund, Mount in carefully when they return for Man Utd
- Breaking bad as McIlroy endures 'weird' day
- EU chief announces $11 bn for nations hit by 'heartbreaking' floods
- Spanish PM, Palestinian leader urge Mideast de-escalation
- New study reinforces theory Covid emerged at Chinese market
- World Bank boosts climate financing by 10 percent
- Bagnaia eyeing summit on home ground in 100th MotoGP
- 'Something was wrong', defendant in French mass rape tells court
- Hezbollah chief admits 'unprecedented' blow in device blasts
- Sales of US existing homes slip slightly in August
- Fear, panic haunt Lebanese after devices explode
- Labuschagne sparks Australia fightback in England ODI opener
- S.Africa's HIV research power couple says fight goes on
- Why is Israel focusing on border with Lebanon?
- Mpox vaccines administered in Rwanda, first in Africa
- US Fed rate cut is 'very positive sign' for economy: Yellen
- Unknown Mozart string trio discovered in Germany
- 'Are we five-year-olds?' F1 drivers won't mind their language
- Brazil judge orders X to reimpose block or face hefty fine
- Munich to rename stadium street after Beckenbauer
- Champions Italy to face Argentina in Davis Cup Final 8
- The winding, fitful path to weight loss drug Ozempic
- Italians defeat American Magic to reach Louis Vuitton Cup final
- Norris has 'nothing to lose' as he hunts Verstappen in Singapore
- Kyiv 'outraged' at Swiss showing of Russian war film
- French city renames Abbe Pierre square after abuse claims
- Footballer charged after huge cannabis seizure at UK airport
- Vatican recognises Medjugorje shrine, but not Virgin's messages
- Bank of England freezes rate after jumbo US cut
- Playing Nadal is 'kind of a nightmare', says Alcaraz
- Portugal tackles last of deadly northern forest fires
- Ton-up Ashwin lifts India to 339-6 against Bangladesh
- Departing NATO chief warns US against 'isolationism'
French actor Depardieu to be tried for sexual assault in October
French screen legend Gerard Depardieu will go on trial for sexual assault in October, the Paris prosecutor said on Monday after police questioned the actor over claims made by two women, the latest in a litany of such charges.
The 75-year-old star, who has made more than 200 films and television series, was charged with rape in 2020 in a separate case and was forced to put his career on hold last autumn as allegations of sexual harassment and assault mounted against him.
He denies any wrongdoing.
After police questioned Depardieu on Monday, the Paris prosecutor said Depardieu would face charges in October 2024 over the assaults allegedly committed in September 2021 during the filming of "The Green Shutters" movie.
"Gerard Depardieu was given a summons to appear before the criminal court (...) for sexual assaults likely to have been committed in September 2021 to the detriment of two victims, on the set of the film 'The Green Shutters'," said a statement.
Earlier, a police source said Depardieu was to be questioned over allegations from two women that he assaulted them on film sets, one in 2021 and the other in 2014.
He was released following the questioning, Depardieu's lawyer Christian Saint-Palais told reporters.
The first woman accuses Depardieu of assaulting her when she was a member of the crew on the 2022 feature film "The Green Shutters".
The set designer, who filed a formal complaint in February, told investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu grabbed her as she left the set in a private hotel in Paris.
She alleged he groped her "waist and stomach, moving up to (her) breasts" and made obscene comments before his bodyguards removed him.
The woman's lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, declined to provide AFP with further details.
The second woman has alleged Depardieu groped her "all over" and made "inappropriate" remarks while she was an assistant on the set of 2015 film "Le magician et le Siamois" ("The Magician and the Siamese"), she told regional newspaper Le Courrier de l'Ouest.
- Rape charge -
Depardieu already faces a rape charge, as well as claims of assault from more than a dozen women -- all of which he has strongly denied.
"Never ever have I abused a woman," Depardieu wrote in Le Figaro newspaper in October.
Police in 2020 charged Depardieu with rape and sexual assault after actor Charlotte Arnould alleged he raped her in 2018 when she was 22 and anorexic.
Another sexual assault complaint filed last year by actor Helene Darras, who said Depardieu groped and propositioned her during a 2007 film shoot, has been dropped for being past the statute of limitations.
Spanish journalist and author Ruth Baza said in December she had filed a criminal complaint in her home country against Depardieu, alleging he raped her in 1995 in Paris.
Despite the events having passed the statute of limitations, she said she decided to file her complaint in the hope that it would "help other people" to do the same.
Depardieu had long made headlines for antics such as socialising with the leaders of Russia and Belarus, obtaining a Russian passport to protest against a planned tax hike in France, and delaying a 2011 flight after urinating into a bottle that overflowed.
But debate over whether to show his films intensified at the end of last year after a television report showed the actor repeatedly making obscene comments in the presence of a woman interpreter during a 2018 trip to North Korea.
His wax sculpture was hurriedly removed from the Musee Grevin waxwork museum in Paris and Canada's Quebec region stripped him of its top honour.
- 'Salacious nonsense' -
Actor Anouk Grinberg, a co-star with Depardieu on "The Green Shutters", has described how she and others on set were "treated to his salacious nonsense from morning to night".
"When film producers hire Depardieu on a film, they know they are hiring an aggressor," she told AFP.
Grinberg said producers of "The Green Shutters" had supposedly appointed someone to deal with harassment issues but that she did nothing.
French cinema has in recent months been rocked by allegations that it has shrugged off sexism and sexual abuse for decades.
Depardieu's case has exposed a major split in French cinema and wider society, with some defending his right to the "presumption of innocence" and others supporting his accusers.
President Emmanuel Macron sparked an outcry in December when he defended the "immense actor" as innocent until proven guilty and insinuated he was the victim of a "manhunt".
Macron later added that he should have emphasised the importance of women speaking up.
Actor Judith Godreche, 52, has become a leading voice in France's #MeToo movement after accusing two film directors of abusing her as an underage teenager.
Speaking in the upper house of parliament in February, she urged the authorities to reform the French cinema industry to protect young female actors from sexual violence.
R.Veloso--PC