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A sexual assault lawsuit filed against G\u00e9rard Depardieu by a French actress has been dropped because it was past the statute of limitations, prosecutors in Paris said on Monday, but the French actor is still under investigation in a separate case.<\/p>\n
In the lawsuit that was dropped, the actress H\u00e9l\u00e8ne Darras had accused Depardieu of groping her on the set of \u201cDisco<\/a>,\u201d a comedy released in 2008. Her suit had been filed in September but was made public only last month, shortly before she appeared in a France 2 television documentary<\/a> alongside three other women who also accused Depardieu of inappropriate comments or sexual misconduct.<\/p>\n The documentary, which showed Depardieu making crude sexual and sexist comments during a 2018 trip to North Korea, set off a fierce debate in France that prompted President Emmanuel Macron<\/a> and dozens of actors, directors and other celebrities<\/a> to defend Depardieu, splitting the French movie industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n Depardieu, 75, has denied any wrongdoing, and he has not been convicted in connection with any of the accusations against him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n On Monday, the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office said that Darras\u2019s suit was dropped in late December because the statute of limitations had run out on the alleged assault, an outcome that was widely expected \u2014 including by the actress herself. She told Agence France-Presse<\/a> in December that she still \u201cwanted to respond to the defense that plays down our allegations by saying they\u2019re \u2018just\u2019 witness accounts.\u201d<\/p>\n In France, adult victims of sexual assault<\/a> have six years after an alleged crime to file a lawsuit.<\/p>\n Another lawsuit, filed in Spain by Ruth Baza, a Spanish journalist who has accused Depardieu of kissing and groping her without her consent when she was in Paris in 1995, could face a similar fate.<\/p>\n Depardieu has been charged with rape and sexual assault<\/a> in a case involving Charlotte Arnould, a French actress who says he sexually assaulted her in Paris in 2018, when she was 22. That investigation is continuing, according to the Paris prosecutor\u2019s office.<\/p>\n While allegations of Depardieu\u2019s sexual misconduct had been growing for years, criticism of the actor resurfaced recently after the France 2 documentary.<\/p>\n Darras was one of 13 women \u2014 actresses, makeup artists and production staff \u2014 who in April had told Mediapart<\/a>, an investigative news website, that Depardieu had made inappropriate sexual comments or gestures during film shoots over the years.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n In the France 2 documentary, and in interviews with Mediapart and other outlets, Darras said that in 2007, on the set of \u201cDisco,\u201d Depardieu had groped her repeatedly in between takes, touching her hips and buttocks, and had propositioned her, even after she refused.<\/p>\n Darras, who was 26 at the time, had said that no one on set had reacted to the groping because Depardieu was treated like a \u201cking,\u201d and that she had been afraid to speak out because she was just starting her career and was worried about being blacklisted.<\/p>\n