Director Nicolas Bedos, who is accused of being touched by a 25-year-old young woman in a nightclub, will be charged with sexual assault in the Paris Criminal Court in early 2024.
The applicant alleges that she touched her private parts above her pants on the night of 1 June while she was having a drink with friends near the dance floor of a Parisian club.
The famous director and actor was summoned to the center’s police station in Paris on Wednesday and arrested. His interrogation, revealed by Actu17 and confirmed by sources close to the AFP file, was extended and then dropped Thursday night.
He will be tried in early 2024 for sexual assault while clearly intoxicated, a crime for which he faces five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 euros, the Paris prosecutor said at the request of AFP.
According to a source familiar with the case, the trial will take place in February.
“Nicolas Bedos was able to explain himself to the investigators,” his lawyer Julia Minkowski told AFP.
“He doesn’t wish to question the complainant’s word, which describes an inappropriate gesture of a few seconds above her jeans,” she continued. “But such a gesture, which he does not remember, which would have taken place on the dance floor of a nightclub, could only have been accidental under the influence of drunkenness,” she added.
The indictment against Mr. Bedos was made on the night of June 1-2. He “reached his hand (…) for my panties while I was in jeans,” the young woman told investigators interviewed by AFP in her story.
Mr Bedos allegedly approached her first without her recognizing him. “Then I honestly saw the way he was looking at me,” she said. Then Mr Bedos “without speaking” touched his privates above his trousers, according to the complainant, who explains “so that he had pushed him off” and then recognized him by saying: “Go for treatment!”
A security guard would then have led Mr. Bedos out of the facility.
When asked by investigators what the nature of the gesture was, the applicant stated that there was “a friction”.
Mr Bedos’ lawyer assured him that the director had “apologized” to him.
As an artist and humorist, Nicolas Bedos represents his politically incorrect, sometimes divisive positions. He is the author of four films, including three that screened at the Cannes Film Festival.
His most-watched feature film, La Belle Époque (2019), won 11 César nominations, including Best Picture and Best Director, and attracted 1.2 million viewers to cinemas.
He flipped the pinnacle of French cinema, from Jean Dujardin (“OSS117: Red Alert in Black Africa”) to Isabelle Adjani (“Mascarade”) via Daniel Auteuil, Guillaume Canet and Fanny Ardant.
Several film personalities have been the focus of sexual violence cases in recent years.
In 2019, actress Adèle Haenel denounced director Christophe Ruggia’s “encroachment” as a teenager, leading to her allegation of “sexually assaulting a minor.” The director denies this.
In addition, the star Gérard Depardieu has been accused of raping and sexually assaulting the young actress Charlotte Arnould since December 2020. which he denies. Thirteen other women recently accused him of sexist and sexual violence between 2004 and 2022 in Mediapart.
The head of the National Cinema Center (CNC), Dominique Boutonnat, faces charges before the Nanterre Criminal Court for sexually assaulting his 21-year-old godson during a stay in Greece in 2020.
The President of the CNC, who was reinstated last July despite the suspicions leveled against him, denies these allegations.