Sexual violence accusations: filmmakers Jacquot and Doillon in police custody in Paris

A clear acceleration in a flagship investigation of the French #MeToo: filmmakers Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, accused for several months by actress Judith Godrèche and other women of sexual violence, are in police custody in Paris on Monday.

Both men dispute these accusations. They arrived Monday morning at the Regional Directorate of the Judicial Police in Paris accompanied by their lawyers, noted an AFP journalist.

Benoît Jacquot “will finally be able to speak before the courts”, reacted his counsel Julia Minkowski, who denounced a “criticizable” police custody when “a free hearing should have been decided”. “I deplore all of these dysfunctions of justice, thanks to an ultra-mediatization that leads to unacceptable excesses”, she added.

For Me Marie Dosé, lawyer for Jacques Doillon, “none of the legal criteria can justify this measure” of police custody, “36 years” after the facts denounced by Judith Godrèche. His client “should have been heard in the context of a free hearing in view of the age of the facts, their prescription acquired for more than two decades, and the inevitable dismissal of any action which will close this investigation”, a- she added in a press release. “His presumption of innocence is flouted all day long” in this “procedure largely contaminated by extra-judicial considerations”, in particular “communication”.

According to sources close to the case, these police custody could allow confrontations between each of the directors and their respective accusers, including Ms. Godrèche. ” I’m crying (…). I don’t know if I have the strength but I will. I will have it, I will have it” reacted the actress on Instagram Monday morning, in a message accompanied by a photo in which she appears with Benoît Jacquot.
Ms. Godrèche’s lawyer, Me Laure Heinich, did not wish to comment, emphasizing the secrecy of the investigation.

“Grip”
In early February, her 52-year-old client had sparked a new storm in the French #MeToo by filing a complaint against Benoît Jacquot for rape and Jacques Doillon for sexual assault. Mr. Jacquot and Ms. Godrèche, born in March 1972, began their relationship in the spring of 1986. They lived openly together, even buying an apartment in Paris, until their separation in 1992. For the actress, it was a relationship of “control” and “perversion.”

Two other actresses have filed complaints against Mr. Jacquot. Julia Roy, 42 years younger than him and who starred in four of his films between 2016 and 2021, filed a complaint for sexual assault in “a context of violence and moral constraint that lasted several years,” according to a source close to the case. Actress Isild le Besco filed a complaint at the end of May for rape of a minor over the age of 15 and rape, dating back to the years 1998-2007.

As for Mr. Doillon, Ms. Godrèche accuses him of having “groped” her during an unplanned sex scene on the set of a film in 1989 when she was 15 years old and in a relationship with Benoît Jacquot. Isild Le Besco also indicated that she had to endure Mr. Doillon’s advances during work sessions, while actress Anna Mouglalis accused the filmmaker of having forcibly kissed her at his home in 2011.

This new wave of accusations in the French #MeToo has set French cinema in turmoil in early 2024 and shaken the French cinema César ceremony or the Cannes Film Festival. A commission of inquiry into sexual violence in cinema, audiovisual, live performance, fashion and advertising had begun in May but was stopped dead after the dissolution of the French National Assembly in early June.

Friday, Dominique Boutonnat, one of the most powerful men in the profession in France, left the head of the National Cinema Center (CNC) after his conviction for sexual assault.

Gérard Depardieu is due to be tried in October in Paris for sexual assault on two women, and risks a trial for rape for a third.