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A French prosecutor has demanded film-maker Christophe Ruggia be put under house arrest for two years over the alleged sexual assault of actor Adèle Haenel when she was a child, after she walked out the landmark trial after his denial of any abuse.
Haenel, 35, has accused film-maker Ruggia, 59, of assaulting her in the early 2000s when she was between 12 and 14 and he was in his late 30s, allegations he has called “pure lies”.
The trial comes as France’s film industry is rocked by allegations of sexual abuse.
Haenel, who starred in the 2019 drama Portrait of a Lady on Fire before quitting cinema, was the first prominent actor to accuse the French film industry of turning a blind eye to the abuse.
The prosecutor on Tuesday requested two years detention with an electronic bracelet plus a three-year suspended sentence against the director.
Ruggia directed Haenel in the 2002 movie The Devils, a tale of an incestuous relationship between a boy and his autistic sister. It was her first film role.
The film contains sex scenes between the children and closeups of Haenel’s naked body.
Investigators said before the trial that members of the film crew had told them of their “unease” with Ruggia’s behaviour on set.
Between 2001 and 2004, after shooting the film, the teenager went to see Ruggia nearly every Saturday.
She has accused him of caressing her thighs and touching her genitals and breasts during these visits.
“He chose to sexually assault her. He had his whole conscience as a man – as an adult – to behave otherwise,” prosecutor Camille Poch said.
She asked that Ruggia also be listed as a sex offender.
Ruggia has denied the allegations.
He told the court earlier on Tuesday that he had in fact sought to protect Haenel from mockery in school over the sex scenes in The Devils.
This caused her to be outraged. “Would you just shut up?” she shouted, banging her hands on the table in front of her.
Haenel marched out and only returned half an hour later with her lawyer, refusing to look at Ruggia.
Haenel went public about the alleged assaults in 2019, stunning the French film industry, which had been slower than Hollywood to react to the #MeToo movement.
Haenel on Tuesday described “normality that shifted by degrees” into abuse.
“Who was there to say, ‘It’s not your fault. It’s grooming. It’s violence’?” she said.
“You can’t abuse children like that. There are consequences. No one helped that child,” she said, speaking of her younger self.
Ruggia’s former partner Mona Achache, 43, told the court about the film-maker confessing to a single “unfortunate gesture” on one of the Saturday visits.
She said Ruggia told her he had been “madly in love” with the young actor.
“He told me they were watching a film on the sofa, she had rested her head on his lap, and his hand moved on to her breast,” she said.
“It was a version of the story that highlighted his virtue in removing his hand.”
The film-maker had also said something to his sister.
“I got the impression he felt guilty,” Véronique Ruggia said.
In 2020, Haenel left the industry’s César award ceremony in protest against a prize awarded to veteran director Roman Polanski, who is wanted in the US for statutory rape.
Last year, she quit cinema over what she called the French film industry turning a blind eye towards sexual abusers.
The trial continues.
Several other allegations have rocked the film sector over the past few years.
French actor Gérard Depardieu, 75, is to stand trial in March accused of sexually assaulting two women. He denies the accusations.
Actor Judith Godrèche said this year two French directors – Benoît Jacquot and Jacques Doillon – had both sexually abused her when she was a teenager. Both deny the accusations.
