Director Christophe Ruggia is on trial on December 9 and 10 in Paris for sexual assault on a minor after Adèle Haenel's complaint. She had spoken a few years earlier in the columns of Médiapart.
The trial of Christophe Ruggia, director known for the films The Devils et In the turmoilopens this Monday, December 9 at the beginning of the afternoon before the Paris criminal court. The 59-year-old filmmaker is accused of “sexual assault on a minor by a person in authority” by actress Adèle Haenel, who first testified to Médiapart in 2019 before taking legal action and filing a complaint. Christophe Ruggia, who benefits from the presumption of innocence, has denied the facts with which he is accused and evokes “revenge” on the part of the actress. This affair is considered the beginning of a French #MeToo in cinema.
The Caesar-winning actress, who has since moved away from film sets and left French cinema, accuses him of having sexually assaulted her from September 2001 to February 2004, after filming the film The Devils (released in 2002 and which depicts an incestuous love between a brother and his sister, both orphans), when she was between 12 and 14 years old. On the other hand, a dismissal was ordered for the sexual assaults denounced by the actress in 2002 during festivals in Japan and Morocco.
Five years ago, Adèle Haenel denounced abuse, which she “clearly considers to be pedophilia and sexual harassment” on the part of Christophe Ruggia in the columns of Médiapart, at a time when she was not considering wearing the case before the courts, before changing his mind and filing a complaint a few months later.
In this article, Adèle Haenel returns to a “control” on the part of the filmmaker who directed her on her first film, The Devilsthen on “permanent sexual harassment” before denouncing “touching” on “the thighs”, “the chest”, towards his “sex” and “forced kisses on the neck” in the director's apartment, at the opportunity for regular meetings every Saturday to expand its cinematographic culture. Sexual assaults which would have pushed her to move away from film sets as a teenager, she closed herself off, until she finally joined the cast of Birth of octopuses by Céline Sciamma.
In the order for referral to the criminal court mentioned by the AFP, it is said that Adèle Haenel denounced in a “detailed, constant and precise manner several episodes of touching of a sexual nature on her penis and her chest while providing details on the unfolding of the events, their systemic nature during visits to Christophe Ruggia's home, the configuration of the premises, their respective positions and the operating mode”. It is also described “the state of astonishment” of the actress at the time of the events by the magistrate as well as “the psychological repercussions” of the attacks denounced, which were confided to relatives “over the years”.
Several professionals also described their “discomfort” with the working conditions imposed on children, but especially the “invasive”, “inappropriate” behavior of the director on the film set. “It’s not okay, it looks like a couple, it’s not normal,” a scriptwriter said to herself.
The referral order consulted by AFP also specifies that “the absence of consent”, therefore “the coercion”, is characterized by the age of Adèle Haenel at the time of the facts and “the significant age difference between the two protagonists. Christophe Ruggia was indicted in January 2020 and placed under judicial supervision. He faces ten years in prison and a fine of 15,000 euros.
