A Paris prosecutor has requested a five-year prison sentence for French film director Christophe Ruggia who is accused of sexually assaulting actress Adèle Haenel when she was a minor.
The sentence, including three years suspended and two under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, was requested after a two-day hearing, that wrapped in Paris’ criminal court late Tuesday (December 10).
The trial has drawn widespread attention for being among the first #MeToo cases in French cinema that has gone to court.
It comes five years after Haenel spoke out against Ruggia, accusing him of grooming and sexual abuse when she was 12 and he was 36 after she was cast in his 2002 film The Devils.
The prosecutor also recommended that Ruggia be placed on France’s national sex offender registry, be banned from contacting Haenel in the future, and pay her in damages. The final sentence will be announced on February 3.
Ruggia, now 59, continued to deny the accusations throughout the hearing, prompting Haenel, 35, to storm out of the courtroom on the second day of the trial after yelling “Shut your mouth!” when the filmmaker claimed he had acted to protect her.
Haenel, known for her turn in Cannes-winning Portrait of a Lady on Fire, announced that she was quitting the French film industry in 2023, citing its complacency with respect to sexual predators. In 2020, she famously marched out of the Cesar awards ceremony in protest against a best director prize for Roman Polanski.
Her initial accusations about Ruggia in 2019 prompted a slew of other allegations that have rocked the French film sector over the past few years.
Actor Gerard Depardieu is set to stand trial in March for accusations of sexually assaulting two women that he has denied, and Judith Godreche has come forward saying that long-revered French directors Benoit Jacquot and Jacques Doillon both sexually abused her when she was underage, both of whom also deny the charges.
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