Pallade Veneta - Court refuses to drop rape charge against actor Gerard Depardieu

Depardieu, 73, was charged with raping and sexually assaulting a young French actress at his home in Paris in 2018, an accusation he has called "baseless".

But Paris chief prosecutor Remy Heitz said in a statement that there was "serious and confirmed evidence that justifies Gerard Depardieu to remain charged" in the case brought by the actress, Charlotte Arnould.

The case will now go back to the prosecuting magistrate who is to resume her work on the case, Heitz said.

Arnould, who was present in the courtroom, declined to comment on the decision, but her lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, told AFP that her client was "relieved".

Depardieu's lawyer, Herve Temime, declined to comment.

Arnould filed her complaint in the summer of 2018 when she was 22, saying she had been raped twice by Depardieu in his swank Left Bank mansion in the French capital a few days earlier.

Prosecutors dropped the case in June 2019, citing lack of evidence, but it was reopened the following year after the actress brought a civil case against Depardieu.

- 'Trying to survive' -

The actor was charged in December 2020 and ordered to be placed under judicial supervision, but not jailed.

One year later, Arnould revealed her identity on Twitter, saying: "I am Depardieu's victim. He was charged one year ago. He is working, while all I am doing is trying to survive."

Depardieu is a friend of Arnould's family and has known her since she was a child.

In 2001, Time magazine asked Depardieu about a 1978 interview in Film Comment magazine in which he described his rough childhood and was quoted as saying "I had plenty of rapes, too many to count".

Asked if he had participated in the rapes, he told Time that he had. "But it was absolutely normal in those times," the actor said.

Depardieu became a star in France from the 1980s with roles in "The Last Metro", "Police" and "Cyrano de Bergerac", before Peter Weir's "Green Card" also made him a Hollywood celebrity.

He later acted in global productions, including Kenneth Branagh's "Hamlet", Ang Lee's "Life of Pi" and Netflix's "Marseille" series.

In 2013, he sparked an outcry by leaving France and taking Russian nationality to protest a proposed tax hike on the rich in his homeland.

Depardieu, a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, last week came out against the war in Ukraine and called for negotiations.

"I am against this fratricidal war. I say 'stop the weapons and negotiate'," Depardieu said.

Depardieu currently stars in two films showing in French cinemas. In one he plays the role of Maigret, the fictional police detective created by writer Georges Simenon, who investigates the murder of a young girl.

In the other, "Robust", he plays an ageing, jaded actor who develops a relationship with a young female security guard.

Z.Ottaviano--PV