France: Police detain actor Gerard Depardieu for questioning

Various French and international media cited police sources on Monday as saying that police in Paris had detained and were questioning movie star Gerard Depardieu.

Investigators made no official mention of the celebrity’s name and later said they would wait until it was clear whether a more formal investigation was taking shape.

But Depardieu’s lawyers at least indirectly acknowledged the information fairly soon after it had spread at scale.

“No need to ask me any questions,” lawyer Christian Saint-Palais said. “You know very well that a lawyer cannot speak at this stage of the procedure, and personally I regret that other persons have spoken, so I won’t make any comment.”

First off-the-record comments suggested law enforcement was investigating recent allegations from two women that Depardieu acted inappropriately while working on movies, one in 2021 and another in 2014.

Cinema mainstay, no stranger to controversy

Depardieu has faced several sexual misconduct allegations in recent years and is subject to an ongoing rape investigation where he proclaims his innocence, with those charges first made in 2020.

He’s said his treatment in domestic media in recent years amounted to a “lynching,” and has also found some support for this stance in France.

Depardieu, 75, is perhaps the most recognizable male face of his generation in French cinema. Some of his most famous roles include playing Asterix’s bulky sidekick Obelix, “Jean de Florette” in a French cinema classic double header, and Cyrano de Bergerac, a 1991 role for which he was even nominated for the Best Actor Oscar despite it being in a language other than English.

He’s also been no stranger to controversy in recent years.

Just over a decade ago, complaining among other things about tax rates for high earners being introduced by then-President Francois Hollande, Depardieu obtained Russian citizenship.

In 2015, his comments on Russia’s annexation of Crimea led to Ukraine’s government blacklisting him.

And in December, comments he’d made about women during a 2018 visit to North Korea deemed vulgar by some came to light and prompted renewed public scrutiny.