Adèle Haenel speaks for the first time since the end of Christophe Ruggia's trial

“It’s his violence, it’s his arrogance, that’s what makes me freak out. » These words are the first spoken by Adèle Haenel since the end of the trial Christophe Ruggia. On December 16, the actress spoke on France Inter following the director's trial which took place on December 9 and 10 at the Paris Criminal Court. The actress accuses the filmmaker of having sexually assaulted her on several occasions between 2001 and 2004, when she was a minor. A sentence of five years in prison, including two years, was requested against the 59-year-old man. The court will deliver its judgment on February 3.

“This trial allowed everyone to be heard, including Mr. Ruggia, who claims that he was prevented from speaking, that it is a media court… There, he had a lot of time to speak and clearly, he gave no explanation,” said Adèle Haenel. According to the actress, the director's line of defense was to sexualize the girl she was and to try to pass himself off as a victim having suffered the assaults of a 12-year-old child with precocious sexuality. . However, “we are talking about someone who is 36 years old, almost 40 years old at the time of the events and who organizes himself to have a 12 year old child in his home alone and to sexually assault her every weekend”. The actress also deplored the lack of accountability from other adults at the time. “I am representing this child who disappeared, whom no one protected. Person. No adult took responsibility,” she said, denouncing the staff present on the set of the film. The Devilsfirst role of his career in the cinema and place of his meeting with Christophe Ruggia. “When I see the images [de ce film]I am appalled that we made children do this, sex scenes. Of course, there is the director, but there is a group of professionals around. A shoot still involves around fifty adults,” she explained. Faced with this “generalized complacency in the profession towards sexual attackers”, the actress announced in May 2023 that she was retiring from cinema.

” Shut your mouth “

Adèle Haenel returned to the famous “shut up” that she said to Christophe Ruggia during the hearing before leaving the room. She explained that it had escaped her: “You have to see the violence that it is. When he said “it was I who gave him his name”, it was too much aggression, it’s not true, it’s false, it’s a lie and more violence, it sends me back when I was on his couch and he told me “without me you are nothing”. It's his violence, it's his arrogance, that's what makes me freak out. I couldn't help it, I tried to respect the protocol but it was too violent. » The actress does not lose her temper. And for good reason. The trial of Christophe Ruggia is only the tip of the iceberg of sexist and sexual violence committed within the 7th Art. In this industry where there is complacency towards sexual offenders, victims are silenced or worse not listened to when they speak out. Very recently, the Cinémathèque française announced the screening of the film The last tango of Bernardo Bertolucci as part of a retrospective in honor of Marlon Brando. The latter had nevertheless sexually assaulted the main actress, Maria Schneider, on the set of the feature film during a rape scene filmed and not consented to by the young woman, then aged 19. The actress had proclaimed on numerous occasions that it was unbearable for her to see this film still in circulation. On December 14, faced with an outcry from feminist associations, the Parisian cultural institution finally gave in and declared it was canceling the event.