New explosion in the French #MeToo of cinema: the Paris prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation after the complaint of the actress Judith Godrèche for rape of a minor against the director Benoît Jacquot, who directed it and maintained a relationship for several years with her from the age of 14.
After Judith Godrèche’s complaint, filed Tuesday with the Minor Protection Brigade (BPM), announced Wednesday by the daily Le Monde and confirmed by the actress’s lawyer, Me Laure Heinich, the Paris prosecutor’s office indicated Wednesday after -noon having opened an investigation.
Entrusted to the BPM, it concerns “the offenses of rape of a minor under 15 years of age by a person in authority, rape, violence by a partner, and sexual assault of a minor over 15 years of age by a person in authority”.
According to Le Monde, Benoît Jacquot, 77 years old and a film expected soon, “firmly denies the allegations and accusations”. When asked, he indicated on Wednesday that he did not wish to react further, sticking to these statements.
The actress and the filmmaker, 25 years her senior, began their relationship in the spring of 1986, when she was just 14 years old and taking her first steps in the cinema. They lived together, without hiding their relationship, even buying an apartment in Paris, until their separation in 1992.
“All of the facts denounced took place between 1986 and 1992,” confirmed the Paris prosecutor’s office.
“A pervert”
In around ten stories published overnight from Tuesday to Wednesday on Instagram, Judith Godrèche repeatedly describes Benoît Jacquot as a “pervert” who “tirelessly puts her in the place of the non-existent object”. At the beginning of January, in another story, the 51-year-old actress said that “the little girl in (her) can no longer keep quiet about this name” and spoke of “control” and, again, “perversion”.
His speaking out was motivated by the viewing of a 2011 documentary where Benoît Jacquot recognized the illegal nature of his past relationship with the teenager: “Yes, it was a transgression. If only in view of the law (…) we don’t have the right in principle, I think. A girl like her who was in fact 15 years old, and I was 40, I didn’t have the right,” he said.
Before investigators, Judith Godrèche also denounced violence during this relationship, according to Me Heinich.
I can only film an actress if I’m in love with her
Benoît Jacquot, Director
The director of “Farewell to the Queen” (2012), heir to the New Wave and known above all for acclaimed successes, has built his work around actresses, stars like Isabelle Huppert or debutantes, like Isild Le Besco and Virginie Ledoyen. “I can only film an actress if I am in love with her,” the person said in 2009 in Le Figaro.
This complaint comes in the wake of numerous #MeToo accusations from French cinema, targeting other important personalities of the French 7th art in recent weeks. Gérard Depardieu, indicted for rape since the end of 2020, was pilloried for sequences filmed in 2018 in North Korea and broadcast by Complément d’investigation in December, where he multiplied misogynistic and insulting remarks while addressing women.