Verdict due in Gérard Depardieu sexual assault trial

French film star Gérard Depardieu has been found guilty of sexually assaulting two women on a film set at a trial in Paris and given a suspended jail term of 18 months.

The 76-year-old actor was accused by the two women of groping them during work on a film in 2021. Depardieu had denied the allegations against him and his lawyer said he would appeal.

The court in Paris found that one of the women, a set dresser named Amélie, had given consistent evidence while the actor's accounts had changed over time.

She told reporters afterwards she was "very moved" and satisfied with the verdict, which for her was "a victory, a major step forward".

Depardieu was also convicted of assaulting an assistant director called Sarah, which was not her real name.

The actor was not in court to hear the verdict but was instead working on a film set in the Azores.

Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, the lawyer acting for the two women, said she hoped the verdict marked the end of impunity for an artist in the film industry.

"It's a victory for two women on a film set but it's a victory for all the women behind this case and I'm thinking of all of Depardieu's other victims," she told reporters.

The lawyer also noted the case had come to an end hours before the Cannes film festival was due to start.

The judge said there was no reason to doubt the word of the two women victims, who had told the court how Depardieu had touched them on intimate parts of the body, using lewd language.

He placed Depardieu on a list of sex offenders and ordered him to pay compensation of €1,000 (£840) each to Amélie and Sarah for "secondary victimisation", a recent innovation covering the additional suffering for the women from the trial itself.

Depardieu's lawyer Jérémie Assous had accused the women of lying during their evidence.

The assaults took place in September 2021 when Depardieu was making a film called Les Volets Verts (The Green Shutters) about an ageing actor coming to terms with his declining powers.

This was Depardieu's first trial on sexual assault charges. Several other women have made similar allegations in the media, and an alleged rape case could come to trial in the future.

After the trial, the actor was invited to join his close friend and fellow actor Fanny Ardant for a film-shoot in the Azores.

At the end of the trial in Paris in late March, prosecutor Laurent Guy said: "It's perfectly possible to be an excellent actor and a great father - and still commit a crime.

"You are not here to pass judgment on French cinema. You are here to judge Gérard Depardieu, just as you would any other citizen."

Claude Vincent, representing one of the two women plaintiffs, described Depardieu as a "misogynist" and a "case-study in sexism".

Depardieu's lawyer had demanded an acquittal and called the plaintiffs' team "more militants than lawyers".

"They cannot bear that there should even be a defence. They think any defence is a supplementary assault," he told the court.

The first plaintiff - 54-year-old set decorator Amélie - told the court that after a minor argument with Depardieu, he caught her between his legs and held her by the hips.

The second woman - a 34-year-old assistant film director - said the actor had touched her buttocks and breasts through her clothes on three separate occasions. She chose to maintain her anonymity and was not in court to hear the verdict.

Depardieu denied the allegations, saying only that he might have touched the women accidentally or to keep his balance.

At the end of the hearings, Depardieu said: "My name has been dragged through the mud by lies and insults.

"A trial can be a very special experience for an actor. Seeing all this anger, the police, the press. It's like being in a science fiction film, except it's not science fiction. It's life."

He thanked the prosecution and defence teams for giving him insights into how courts operate. "These lessons may be an inspiration for me one day if I get to play a lawyer," he said.

Depardieu said he had not worked as an actor for three years since the sexual allegations against him began to circulate.

However earlier this month it was reported that he had begun working on a film directed by Fanny Ardant. Depardieu is playing a magician on a mysterious island, according to media reports.

Ardant appeared with Depardieu in Les Volets Verts and spoke in his defence at the trial.

"Genius - in whatever form it takes - carries within it an element of the extravagant, the untamed, the dangerous. (Depardieu) is the monster and the saint," she said.

Another veteran French actress took Depardieu's side on Monday. In a rare interview with French television, Brigitte Bardot, 90, deplored how "talented people who touch the buttocks of a girl are consigned to the deepest dungeon."

"Feminism isn't my thing," Bardot said. "Personally, I like men."