Film director found guilty of sexual assault in France’s first big #MeToo trial
A Paris court found filmmaker Christophe Ruggia guilty of sexually assaulting French actor Adele Haenel when she was between 12 and 15 years old in the early 2000s in the country’s first big #MeToo trial.
Ruggia was sentenced Monday to two years under house arrest with an electronic bracelet plus a two-year suspended sentence. Ruggia had denied any wrongdoing. Haenel, now 35, was the first top actor in France to accuse the film industry of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse after the #MeToo movement broke out. In 2019, she accused Ruggia of having repeatedly touched her inappropriately during and after filming of the movie “Les Diables” (“The Devils”) in the early 2000s. Haenel appeared relieved, breathing deeply, as Monday’s verdict was being released.
She was applauded by some women’s rights activists as she left the courtroom. The court ruled that Ruggia took advantage of the dominant position he had on Haenel at the time. “During quasi-weekly meetings at your home for over three years, you had sexualized gestures and attitudes as Haenel was gradually isolated from her loved ones,” the court said in a statement.
Ruggia’s lawyer said her client would appeal. Haenel, star of the 2019 Cannes entry “Portrait of a Lady on Fire,” has in recent years vocally protested what she’s called an insufficient response to sexual abuse in French filmmaking. At the César Awards in 2020, she walked out of the ceremony after Roman Polanski won best director.
Polanski is still wanted in the US decades after he was charged with raping a 13-year-old girl in 1977. In 2023, Haenel announced she was quitting the French film industry, which she denounced for complacency toward sexual aggressors. She published an open letter in which she said Cannes and other pillars of the French film industry “are ready to do anything to defend their rapist chiefs.” While #MeToo initially struggled to find traction in France, some other actors and film industry workers have since spoken out.
