Pallade Veneta - French court to hear Depardieu's appeal against rape trial order: sources

Depardieu's lawyers will present their arguments at a closed-door session of the Paris court of appeal on Thursday and seek to have the case dropped, the sources told AFP, asking not to be named.

A French investigating judge in August 2025 ordered Depardieu to stand trial on charges of raping actor Charlotte Arnould in 2018.

The move came after a Paris court handed Depardieu an 18-month suspended sentence in a separate case in May 2025 after convicting him of sexually assaulting two women on a film set in 2021.

The new legal team of the actor, 77, which he has changed since the 2025 conviction, will seek to undermine Arnould's case, a source said. But prosecutors will seek to uphold the decision to send the case to trial, another source added.

"His new lawyers are persisting in disparaging the victim as a defence strategy," Arnould's lawyer Carine Durrieu Diebolt told AFP. "We trust the justice system to finally bring this to trial," she added.

The appeal court is expected to give its decision at a later date.

Arnould accuses Depardieu of raping her at his home during the summer of 2018 while she was aged 22. She filed a complaint just days after the alleged incident.

In May, a Paris court convicted Depardieu on charges of sexual assault during the filming in 2021 of "Les Volets Verts" ("The Green Shutters") by director Jean Becker. The appeal trial in that case is scheduled for November 16 to 20.

That conviction and a slew of other allegations in recent years have irrevocably tarnished the reputation of a man previously seen as the colossus of French cinema for the past half-century.

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.

R.Zaccone--PV