French prosecutors have requested an 18-month suspended jail sentence for French actor Gerard Depardieu, who is on trial for the sexual assault of two women during a 2021 film shoot.
A judge will now deliberate on the sentence request.
The lead prosecutor Laurent Guy also asked Depardieu be fined €20,000 and pay damages to the plaintiffs – an unnamed assistant director and a set dresser who worked with the actor on Jean Becker’s The Green Shutters (Les Volets Verts) that co-starred Anouk Grinberg and Fanny Ardant.
“What we have here are evidently sexual assaults with intent,” Guy told the court.
He said Depardieu should also be ordered to undergo psychological treatment and be added to France’s sex offender registry.
Depardieu denied any wrongdoing throughout the four-day trial and refuted the accounts of both plaintiffs.
“I’m vulgar, rude, foul-mouthed, I’ll accept that,” he told the court on Wednesday, but added “I don’t touch.”
He also alleged he only grabbed the set dresser’s hips “to keep from slipping.”
Ardant, a longtime friend of the actor, defended Depardieu in court on Wednesday, claiming “I have never witnessed a gesture that I found shocking.”
Despite multiple accusations of sexual misconduct in the past, Monday’s court date marks the first official trial for the actor known for more than 200 films and series including The Last Metro, Cyrano de Bergerac and Green Card.
French actress Charlotte Arnould was the first to file a criminal complaint against Depardieu in 2018, accusing him of rape. Prosecutors have requested another trial over that case, but no official court date has been set.
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