Nâzim Boudjenah, from the Comédie-Française, summoned for dismissal after a complaint from Sandrine Rousseau

The actor allegedly made “death threats” against the environmentalist MP who took the case to court.

A resident of the Comédie-Française is summoned by the institution to a “preliminary interview with a view to dismissal”, announced the latter on Wednesday January 15 after learning “serious actions” on his part, in particular against the environmentalist MP Sandrine Rousseau.

In June 2021, this 52-year-old actor, Nâzim Boudjenah, had already been sentenced in Paris to six months of suspended imprisonment for death threats made in 2019 and 2020 against a former girlfriend, with a two-year probationary suspension including a ban on contacting the victim, an obligation to provide compensation and care.

“New facts” – of the “serious actions” emanating from the“one of his employees” – were worn “to the knowledge of the Comédie-Française” during a hearing on Monday of its general administrator Éric Ruf before the National Assembly’s commission of inquiry into violence committed in the cinema and performing arts sectors, the Frenchman said in a press release.

The president of this commission Sandrine Rousseau then made public the fact that this actor had “also made death threats against [elle]”. “Which pushed me to file a complaint against him, to report him to the prosecutor, since these threats were serious,” she added. These threats were made in July 2024, she told AFP.

“The discovery of these new facts authorizes the Comédie-Française (…) to summon him to a preliminary interview with a view to his dismissal”adds the institution, without naming this employee. Sandrine Rousseau indicated that the trial between her and the actor would take place “next June 6th.

In its press release, the Comédie-Française specifies that it has “already taken measures against this employee by immediately removing him from the sets”. Elle “firmly refutes the allegations of inertia, since it has put in place all the necessary measures to prevent and protect the health and safety of its employees, which is at the heart of its daily concerns. It reaffirms its total support to victims of gender-based and sexual violence”.

Monday, to Sandrine Rousseau’s question whether Nâzim Boudjenah had been “reappointed as an employee of the Comédie-Française”the general administrator of the Frenchman had confirmed. In 2021, Nâzim Boudjenah was acquitted for violence in March 2020 and the prosecution for other violence was canceled for procedural reasons.