The French actor Gérard Depardieu on Monday appeared before a Paris court where he faces two charges of sexually assaulting two women working on the set of a film in which he was starring.
The trial will be the first time Mr. Depardieu has been forced to answer in court to accusations of groping, sexual assault and harassment, and rape that have piled up against him for years, and which he has denied.
The charges in this trial came after two women on the set of “Les Volets Verts,” a movie by the French director Jean Becker that was released in 2022, filed police complaints that he had groped their genitals, buttocks and breasts. If found guilty, Mr. Depardieu faces up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, or about $81,000.
Mr. Depardieu has denied all accusations in the case being brought to trial Monday. His lawyer, Jérémie Assous, called them “totally false and unrealistic.”
The trial was scheduled for last October, but was postponed after Mr. Depardieu did not appear for health reasons. Mr. Assous presented medical assessments that showed Mr. Depardieu suffered from long-term diabetes and heart problems after undergoing a quadruple bypass, and that anxiety from the trial had worsened his conditions.
For many, the case represents a breakthrough for the #MeToo movement in France, which was stalled for years, particularly in the film industry.
Considered the most famous and powerful actor France has produced in generations, Mr. Depardieu, now 76, has dominated the French screen for decades, appearing in more than 230 films, including “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “The Man in the Iron Mask.”
“He’s truly an artist, on a par with directors, given his aura,” said Geneviève Sellier, the author of “The Cult of the Auteur,” a book about sexual abuse in a segment of the movie industry. “So the fact that Depardieu was charged, and is going to trial, means that from now on the artist in France is no longer above the law.”
While the #MeToo movement toppled scores of powerful men in Hollywood almost immediately after it started in 2017, in France its advent was viewed suspiciously by some as a puritanical American import that was tainting an essential part of France’s intellectual and cultural identity.
The movement has brought some small structural changes to the cinema industry, including mandatory training for producers in preventing sexual violence on sets if movies are to receive important government subsidies. But it has otherwise faced strong resistance from a sector that is considered near sacred in France and run largely by men.
“Up until now, the French institutions of the cinema covered up all these excesses,” Ms. Sellier said. “All these institutions are run by men — who are immovable and who have turned a blind eye to these abuses for as long as possible.”
In recent months, however, a number of cases have gone to trial and resulted in convictions. Last fall, the film director and actor Nicolas Bedos was convicted of sexually assaulting two women in 2023 and sentenced to one year in prison, which was reduced to six months of house arrest with electronic surveillance.
Last month, a French court convicted the director Christophe Ruggia of sexually assaulting the actress Adèle Haenel when she was a minor, handing him a four-year sentence — two years under house arrest and the rest suspended. Mr. Ruggia has appealed the ruling.
It is too soon to determine if the rulings signal a shift for #MeToo in French cinema, said Marie Lemarchand, an actress who is a member of the Association of Actors and Actresses, which was formed in 2021 to lobby for changes in the industry.
“But symbolically, it’s very powerful, because these people who filed complaints were recognized as victims,” Ms. Lemarchand said.
The first allegations against Mr. Depardieu in the #MeToo era arose in 2018, when a young aspiring actress, Charlotte Arnould, told the police that the actor raped her twice when she was 22.
An investigation into those allegations was dropped, then later picked up again in 2020 and is continuing, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
After Ms. Arnould stepped forward publicly, others followed.
At least three investigations into allegations of sexual assault and rape against Mr. Depardieu, brought by French actresses and a Spanish journalist, were launched. Two were dropped because they were past the statute of limitations.
Mr. Depardieu has called all the accusations false and the media coverage a “lynching.” In 2023, he wrote in the conservative daily Le Figaro that he might be “provocative, overflowing, sometimes rude” but that he had “never, ever abused a woman.”
Many prominent people have rushed to Mr. Depardieu’s defense. Most notable among them is President Emmanuel Macron of France, who condemned what he called a “manhunt” against the actor, who he said “makes France proud.”
“There is always this protection of men’s honor,” said Ms. Lemarchand, noting that Mr. Depardieu had been nurtured by a system that at best ignored sexual abuse and violence and at worst promoted it.
But, there was a danger in singling out Mr. Depardieu as a “monster,” she said. “He can’t be separated from the rest of the profession, the environment in which we work,” she said, nor “from the rest of what our society values.”
The trial is scheduled to last two days but could be extended because the court’s medical expert has said that Mr. Depardieu’s health permitted him to attend for no more than six hours at a time, his lawyer said.
Ségolène Le Stradic contributed reporting from Paris
