French film star Depardieu faces new allegation of sexual assault

Helene Darras said that Depardieu assaulted her while filming a movie in 2007, Paris prosecutors said, confirming a report from broadcaster France 2.

Investigators were studying the complaint, which likely falls under France's statute of limitations, to decide whether or not to launch a probe.

Depardieu's lawyer Christian Saint-Palais could not immediately be reached for comment.

Darras told France 2 that Depardieu groped her when she was aged 26 and appearing as an extra in the film "Disco".

The older man "ran his hand over my thighs and my buttocks" then "said straight out: 'Do you want to come to my dressing room?'," she added.

Darras rejected the alleged advances, but "that didn't change anything," she went on. "He kept groping me between takes".

Depardieu was in 2020 charged in Paris after allegations of rapes and sexual assaults following a complaint by actor Charlotte Arnould.

Other women have since accused Depardieu of sexual violence in the press.

He insisted that he is "neither a rapist nor a predator" in a letter to conservative newspaper Le Figaro in October.

"Never, but never have I abused a woman," Depardieu wrote, saying that he would not be getting involved in "any projects" given the "context" of the allegations.

(AFP)