Jacques Doillon “has decided to file a defamation lawsuit” against actress Judith Godrèche over her “vile” comments, the French filmmaker's lawyer Marie Dosé announced in a press release to AFP on Thursday.
“After Judith Godrèche made a barrage of comments against the dignity and integrity of Jacques Doillon, he decided to file a defamation complaint,” the lawyer writes.
“To dare to publicly claim, as she did again on February 21, that he 'slept with children' who appeared in his films is despicable and incomprehensible,” she added.
On Instagram on Wednesday evening, the actress quoted a press article and wrote: “In 2022, this newspaper writes that Doillon's specialty is filming with children.” “One sentence is missing: 'Who he sleeps with,'” she accuses him.
Me Dosé recalls that Jacques Doillon has still not been heard in the investigation and that his presumption of innocence has been violently violated for weeks. “He won’t let himself be soiled like that without reacting,” she adds.
At the beginning of February, Judith Godrèche, who has become a spearhead of the #MeToo movement in France, filed a complaint against Jacques Doillon, but also against the director Benoît Jacquot, for sexual and physical violence that dates back to his youth.
A preliminary investigation is underway in Paris into allegations of rape of a minor under 15 years old by a person in authority, rape, intimate partner violence and sexual assault of a minor over 15 years old by a person in authority.
At the time the investigation was launched, the Paris public prosecutor's office stated that “all the facts reported took place between 1986 and 1992”.
The actress Isild Le Besco, who had already spoken out against MM. Jacquot and Doillon plan to file a lawsuit against these two directors after Judith Godrèche, we learned on Thursday from his lawyer Benjamin Chouai.