Justice ordered an expertise on Friday to determine whether the images from a broadcast Further investigation on France 2where Gérard Depardieu made comments of a sexual nature towards a little girl, had been manipulated as the actor claims.
In a decision consulted by AFP and revealed by Télérama, the Paris Court of Appeal orders this expertise of raw images filmed in a stud farm during a trip to North Korea in 2018, “at the advanced expense of Mr. Depardieu who has an interest in seeing this measure carried out”.
A first judgment rendered in May
It partially overturns a civil judgment rendered in May, at first instance, which ordered the production company Hiraki to hand over the images directly to the actor. This decision aroused the fears of Reporters Without Borders, which denounced “a risk of breaching the secrecy of sources” and Hiraki had appealed.
Filmed during a trip with Yann Moix in 2018, the images were made public by this episode of Further investigationat the end of 2023. We could see Depardieu multiplying misogynistic and insulting comments in the stud farm, while on the screen a little girl was riding a horse.
The show sparked enormous controversy and precipitated the fall of the actor, accused by several women of rape and sexual violence.
Depardieu claims that the editing is misleading and that his words were not intended for the young girl, which the expert will have to determine, and also claims that it was a fictional scene.
“No doubt and no ambiguity”
The France Télévisions group had already had the incriminated passage authenticated by a bailiff and assured that there was no “no doubt and no ambiguity” on the fact that the young girl was targeted by Gérard Depardieu’s comments.
The latter must also be tried on October 28 before the Paris criminal court for sexual assaults committed on two women during the filming of Jean Becker’s film The green shuttersin 2021.
A trial was also requested against him in August before the departmental criminal court for rape and sexual assault on the actress Charlotte Arnould.
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