French director Christophe Ruggia has been given a two-year custodial sentence under house arrest with an electronic bracelet with another two years suspended following a landmark trial in which he was found guilty of sexual assault accusations by actress Adèle Haenel.
The Paris prosecutor’s office had requested five years in prison, with three years suspended, following a turbulent two-day court hearing in early December.
The sentence comes six years after Haenel went public in 2019 with sexual assault accusations against Ruggia in an interview with investigative website Mediapart.
Haenel accused Ruggia of sexually assaulting and molesting her over the course of three years, beginning with the shoot of The Devils in 2001, when she was 12 and he was 36, and continuing into the promotional and festival tour.
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Ruggia, who denied the accusations, suggested to the court that Haenel’s accusations were “revenge” because he had not made a second film with her, a claim that was brushed aside by her lawyer.
Proceedings were briefly suspended on day two of the trial after Haenel yelled out “Shut your mouth!” and stormed out, when Ruggia was giving evidence in his defence suggesting he had tried to protect her as a teenager and advise her on how to avoid being bullied at school.
The trial was seen as a landmark #MeToo case in France.
Haenel put her career on the line when she went public with her accusations against Ruggia in 2019, a time when France had yet to embrace #MeToo.
She received little open support from the local film industry at the time.
A Best Director César for Roman Polanski for An Officer and A Spy a few weeks later was seen as a slap in the face for the actress, given his unresolved U.S. rape charge as well as several other sexual assault allegations against him, which he has denied.
Feminist activists had protested the fact he was eligible for a nomination and picketed the ceremony. The César Academy has since changed its rules so that professionals under official investigation for sexual violence are barred from the ceremony or receiving an award behind closed doors although they are still eligible for nominations.
Haenel stormed out of the 2020 ceremony in protest and three years later wrote an open letter that she was leaving the film industry because of its “general complacency” towards sexual predators.
The situation has changed in France, in part due to popular actress Judith Godrèche’s decision to go public earlier this with allegations of sexual assault against Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon, which sparked a fresh #MeToo wave in the country.
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