Paris: A Paris court on Monday postponed the trial of French actor Gerard Depardieu on sexual assault charges until March after his lawyer said the star was too ill to appear in court.
Depardieu is the highest-profile figure to face accusations in French cinema's version of the #MeToo movement, which was triggered in 2017 by allegations against US producer Harvey Weinstein.
He has faced a string of assault and rape allegations in recent years and has a possible second court case already lying in wait.
The 75-year-old "wants to be heard", his lawyer Jeremie Assous told the court, while recalling that Depardieu has undergone a quadruple heart bypass and suffers from diabetes that he said was aggravated by the stress of the trial.
The judge ordered the trial adjourned until March 24 next year, with a medical to be held in early March to see if Depardieu would be fit to appear.
Initial arguments in the courtroom were intense, with Assous immediately attacking an investigation that he said had been biased and botched.
He also targeted the two plaintiffs, saying they were "seeking the media spotlight" and denying they were victims.
The women aged 53 and 33, named only as Amelie and Sarah (not her real name), visibly sighed and rolled their eyes at Assous's claims.
"The defence's approach is particularly violent and aims to create new trauma for the victims," Amelie's lawyer Carine Durrieu-Diebolt told AFP.
Green Shutters
Monday's case concerns charges of sexual assault during a 2021 film shoot.
Amelie, a set dresser, reported in February that she had suffered sexual assault, sexual harassment and sexist insults during filming of director Jean Becker's "Les Volet Verts" ("The Green Shutters") in a private house in Paris.
The plaintiff told French investigative website Mediapart that Depardieu had started loudly calling for a cooling fan during the shoot because he "couldn't even get it up" in the heat.
She claimed the actor went on to boast that he could "give women an orgasm without touching them".
The plaintiff alleged that an hour later Depardieu "brutally grabbed" her as she was walking off the set.
The actor pinned her by "closing his legs" around her before groping her waist and her stomach, continuing up to her breasts, she added.
Depardieu made "obscene remarks" during the incident, she said, including: "Come and touch my big parasol. I'll stick it in your pussy."
She described the actor's bodyguards dragging him away as he shouted: "We'll see each other again, my dear."
The second plaintiff in Monday's case, an assistant director on the same film, also alleges sexual violence.
"Gerard Depardieu denies all of the accusations in their totality," his lawyer Assous said on Monday.
The actor was being targeted with "vagueness, false information and lies," he added.
Anouk Grinberg, an actor who appeared in "The Green Shutters", was present in the courtroom to support the plaintiffs - the only well-known figure from French cinema to attend.
She said Depardieu showed "the wild behaviour of a king who believes he can do everything and everyone will keep quiet".
"In fact, no, that's enough!" Grinberg added.
Also present was Charlotte Arnould, the first woman to file a criminal complaint against Depardieu in 2018.
Paris courts are still deciding whether to go ahead with a second trial for Depardieu for allegedly raping and sexually assaulting Arnould, while several other women have filed complaints against him.
'Face him down'
"I hope (Depardieu) will have the courage to attend, because we'll be here, we're ready to face him down so that he finally tells the truth," Arnould told a swarm of press cameras following Monday's hearing.
Depardieu himself has consistently denied any wrongdoing.
"Never, but never, have I abused a woman," he wrote in an open letter published in conservative daily Le Figaro in October last year.
Weeks later, President Emmanuel Macron shocked feminists by complaining of a "manhunt" targeting Depardieu, whom he called a "towering actor" who "makes France proud".
Protesters outside court on Monday thought otherwise.
"You do not make France proud," dozens chanted.
Directors Benoit Jacquot and Jacques Doillon are among the other major figures in French cinema accused of sexual violence.
