One of France’s most successful actors has been accused of sexually assaulting two women on the set of one of his films.

Gerard Depardieu, 76, has starred in more than 200 films over five decades, winning two best lead actor awards at the Cesars, as well as being nominated for an Oscar and 15 other Cesars.

On Tuesday, judges at the Tribunal de Paris are expected to reveal whether he has been found guilty of the two counts of sexual assault alleged to have happened in 2021, both of which he denies.

If convicted, he faces up to five years in prison or a fine of €75,000 (£62,000).

While the #MeToo movement ultimately led to the downfall of Hollywood film director Harvey Weinstein in the US, France’s #balancestonporc equivalent has struggled to gain momentum.

But Depardieu’s court case, coming soon after that of Gisele Pelicot, who waived her anonymity to reveal her husband had orchestrated her drugging and rape by more than 50 men, is proof for many that France is finally getting its own #MeToo moment.

Here, Sky News looks at the case – and what it means for women’s rights in France.

What is he accused of?

Depardieu is accused of sexually assaulting two female crew members on the set of the film Les Volets Verts (Green Shutters) in 2021.

The anonymous women both claim the actor forced himself on them on multiple occasions, touching them over their clothes, the court was told.

The first woman said in one incident, as she passed him in a corridor he grabbed her, pinned her down between his legs and rubbed himself against her waist, hips, and chest, making accompanying gestures and lewd comments.

The other woman claimed he touched her buttocks in public on more than one occasion, as well as touching her chest.

Depardieu denies the allegations and appeared in person at the Tribunal de Paris, telling the court: “I’ve always been told I have a Russian nature, I don’t know if it’s because of the drinking or the vulgarity.”

But he added: “I’m not touching the butts of women.”

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One of the alleged victims claimed he behaved “like a madman” who took “pleasure in frightening me”.

Depardieu responded: “I understand perfectly if she’s a bit upset. I am capable of trash talk… I don’t have to talk like that, get angry like that, voila.”

He also claimed that he had been in a “bad mood” because the set was hot, which was difficult for him, being overweight.

The trial was due to start in October but was postponed until March after Depardieu’s legal team asked for a six-month delay due to his poor health. Suffering complications from diabetes and high blood pressure, they said he was unable to sit for long periods.

Separately, he also remains under investigation for the alleged rape and sexual assault of a 22-year-old actress. The woman claims Depardieu sexually assaulted her twice at his home.

She originally reported the alleged incidents in 2018 but the charges were dropped in 2019 following a nine-month investigation.

However, the case was reopened in October 2020 when the woman refiled the complaint.

In March 2022, Depardieu’s bid to get the case thrown out was rejected by Paris’s court of appeal, with authorities saying he would remain under investigation until the matter is either sent to trial or dismissed. He denies the allegations.

In April 2023, investigative French media outlet Mediapart reported claims of 13 women who said Depardieu sexually assaulted or harassed them between 2004 and 2022.

In an open letter in the newspaper Le Figaro that October, Depardieu said he had “never abused a woman”.

A group of 50 French stars, including singer and wife of former French President Nicolas Sarkozy Carla Bruni, wrote their own open letter defending him in Le Monde, condemning what they described as his “lynching” and describing him as “probably the greatest” French actor.

A week later, President Emmanuel Macron condemned the “manhunt” for Depardieu, calling him an “immense actor” who “makes France proud”.

Who is Gerard Depardieu?

Depardieu was born in Chateauroux, central France in 1948. He left home at the age of 16 for Paris, where he got his first acting job with a travelling theatre company.

After a few minor film roles, his break came in 1973 with a lead part in Bertrand Blier’s film Les Valseuses (Going Places) – alongside his former theatre friends Patrick Dewaere and Miou Miou.

From there his popularity boomed and he became one of the most prolific French actors of the 1980s and 1990s.

He won awards for his roles in The Last Metro and Cyrano de Bergerac, which also received an Oscar nomination. He was made president of the Cannes Film Festival jury in 1992.

His success also saw him become a Chevalier of France’s Legion d’Honneur and its Ordre national du Merite – two of the country’s most prestigious honours.

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Across roughly 250 films, he has worked with more than 150 directors, including Jean-Luc Godard and Ridley Scott.

He became close friends with Robert De Niro after they starred together in Bernardo Bertolucci’s film 1900 in 1976.

Depardieu married fellow actor Elisabeth Depardieu in 1971. She starred alongside him in Jean de Florette and Manon Of The Spring in 1986. They had two children, who both became actors. Their son Guillaume died from pneumonia aged 37 in 2008. The couple divorced in 1996.

He announced his retirement from acting in 2005, claiming he had made “enough” films and wished to pursue other things.

In 2012 he moved to Belgium to avoid paying taxes in France. He wrote an open letter to the then prime minister, saying he was surrendering his French passport because he wanted “nothing to do” with his home country and the government was trying to “punish success”.

Vladimir Putin personally signed an executive order to give him Russian citizenship in 2013. Two years later his films were banned in Ukraine over comments he made questioning the country’s sovereignty as an independent state. He has since condemned Russia’s war there.

He also claims to have been given citizenship by the United Arab Emirates.

In 2023 he was stripped of his National Order of Quebec after a documentary revealed him making lewd comments and sexual gestures on a trip to North Korea in 2018, which the region’s premier described as “shocking”.

Why is the Depardieu case so important in France?

The #MeToo and #TimesUp movements in the US saw women in the creative industries calling out sexual harassment and assault by their male counterparts.

But it “didn’t really take off in France” in the same way, Sarah McGrath, chief executive of Women For Women France, an organisation fighting against gender-based violence, tells Sky News.

While she saw colleagues around the world “thrilled that victims could finally feel confident to talk about the crimes they’d be subjected to”, she says in France “we had a very different experience”.

In 2018, dozens of female French stars and intellectuals signed an “anti-MeToo manifesto”, condemning the movement as a “witch hunt” and defending men’s sexual freedom to proposition women.

Although some, notably Depardieu’s co-star and friend Catherine Deneuve, have publicly U-turned on the issue, it demonstrated a resistance to change in French society.

Blanche Sabbah, a French feminist activist and comic book author, says: “We love to talk about being the cultural exception in France.

“We have this idea that if you are some kind of artistic genius then you are less accountable for bad behaviour – and that we’re more sexually liberated – and don’t concern ourselves with moral panics like in the US. I think that stopped the [MeToo] movement in its tracks.”

Ms McGrath describes this “cultural exception” as “an attitude that a man’s reputation and livelihood is more important than victims”.

Both women also point to a “general distrust” of claimants and “false ideas” they are bypassing the courts and telling their stories in the media to “get money”.

“It’s simply not true and comes from a lack of understanding that the French justice system does not play a protective role for victims of sexual violence,” she says.

“Victims are actually more likely to come out with debts of thousands of euros if they go through the justice system, which far exceeds any compensation they might get.”

But while the “balancestonporc” – report your pig – hashtag struggled to gain momentum in 2018, the women say they have seen a shift – particularly following the case of Gisele Pelicot and the conviction of her husband for raping and inviting at least 50 other men to rape her while she was drugged and unconscious.

“It’s taken time, but finally we’re getting somewhere,” Ms Sabbah says. “Gisele’s case serves as a reminder that our culture has a huge influence on how we behave.”

Those found guilty in the Pelicot case were aged between 20 and 70 and included a journalist, nurse, firefighters, and a DJ.

“She has proven that this is the problem of every man – that what you think your favourite movie star can do serves as an argument for justifying what crimes you would commit as a ‘normal’ person’,” Ms Sabbah adds.

Regardless of the outcome of the Depardieu case, both women agree that his prosecution represents a “huge step forward” for women’s rights and victims of gender-based violence.

“There have been three or four convictions [of men for gender-based violence] recently, so I think the way those cases are perceived now is different to how it was in 2018,” Ms Sabbah says.

“We have gone from ‘classement sans suite’ (no further action) to movie stars on trial.”

The US and China have agreed to slash trade tariffs on each other, a move Donald Trump has said was part of a “total reset” in relations.

The president said the 90-day truce followed “very friendly” talks between the two sides in Switzerland over the weekend and those discussions would continue..

“China was being hurt very badly. They were closing up factories they were having a lot of unrest and they were very happy to do something with us”, he told reporters at the White House.

The breakthrough was announced early on Monday – to the delight of fincial markets – by the leader of the US delegation, treasury secretary Scott Bessent.

US trade representative Jamieson Greer confirmed so-called reciprocal tariffs were now at 10% each.

In real terms, it meant the US is reducing its 145% tariff to 30% on Chinese goods. A tariff of 20% had been implemented on China when President Donald Trump took office, over what his administration said was a failure to stop illegal drugs entering the US.

China has agreed to reduce its 125% retaliatory tariffs to 10% on US goods.

Sector-specific tariffs, such as the 25% tax on cars, aluminium and steel, remain in place.

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Tariffs, taxes on imports of more than 100%, had been imposed on both sides. China was the only country exempt from a 90-day pause on the “retaliatory” tariffs above the base 10% levies applied by America.

Major retailers had been warning Mr Trump of empty shelves as US importers pause shipments.

Mr Bessent said after a weekend of negotiations in Switzerland, the countries had a mechanism for continued talks.

It’s the second major trade announcement made by the US in the last week, after a deal was secured with the UK on Thursday.

The move signals a willingness from the Americans to make deals on tariffs.

Why Trump blinked in US-China trade war

Ed Conway

Economics and data editor

@EdConwaySky

Of all the fronts in Donald Trump’s trade war, none was as dramatic and economically threatening as the sky-high tariffs he imposed on China.

There are a couple of reasons: first, because China is and was the single biggest importer of goods into the US and, second, because of the sheer height of the tariffs imposed by the White House in recent months.

In short, tariffs of over 100% were tantamount to a total embargo on goods coming from the United States’ main trading partner.

That would have had enormous economic implications, not just for the US but every other country around the world (these are the world’s biggest and second-biggest economies, after all).

So the truce announced on Monday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent is undoubtedly a very big deal indeed.

Read more from Ed Conway here

Welcomed news

The news was received positively by Asian stock markets on Monday as major indexes were up.

In China, the Shanghai Composite stock index rose 0.8%, the Shenzhen Component gained 1.7%, and Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index was up nearly 3%.

In countries across Asia, benchmark stock indexes also rose. Korea’s Kospi grew 1.1%, Japan’s Nikkei was up 0.8%, while India’s Nifty 50 index of most valuable companies gained more than 3%.

US stocks rose sharply at the open.

The S&P 500 and tech-heavy Nasdaq saw their biggest leaps in more than a month, rising almost 3% and 4% respectively.

The market rally was visible in Europe too.

The dollar – hit in recent weeks by US recession speculation – was up more than a cent versus the pound while oil prices also rallied. Brent crude, the international benchmark, was 3.5% higher at $66 a barrel.

What next?

When asked by journalists about what the US wanted to see from China in the 90s, Mr Bessent said, “As long as there is good faith effort, engagement and constructive dialogue, then we will keep moving forward.”

The UK came to the front of the line for deals, Mr Bessent added, “as our oldest ally”.

Switzerland had also moved to the “front of the queue”, he said, while the EU has been slower.

As with the other counties subject to 90-day pauses, a permanent deal will need to be reached, but confidence across the world is likely to have been boosted.

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Businesses now need a clear timetable and roadmap for future negotiations under the newly announced economic and trade consultation mechanism, said Andrew Wilson, the deputy secretary general of the International Chamber of Commerce.

“The credibility of that process for resolving underlying frictions in the Sino-US economic relationship will be mission-critical in terms of restoring business confidence.”

Nigel Farage has told Sky News he would allow some essential migration in areas with skill shortages but that numbers would be capped.

The Reform UK leader said he would announce the cap “in four years’ time” after he was pressed repeatedly by Sky’s deputy political editor Sam Coates about his manifesto pledge to freeze “non-essential” immigration.

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It was put to Mr Farage that despite his criticism of the government’s migration crackdown, allowing essential migration in his own plans is quite a big caveat given the UK’s skills shortages.

However the Clacton MP said he would allow people to plug the gaps on “time dependent work permits” rather than on longer-term visas.

He said: “Let’s take engineering, for argument’s sake. We don’t train enough engineers, we just don’t. It’s crazy.

“We’ve been pushing young people to doing social sciences degrees or whatever it is.

“So you’re an engineering company, you need somebody to come in on skills. If they come in, on a time dependent work permit, if all the right health assurances and levies have been paid and if at the end of that period of time, you leave or you’re forced to leave, then it works.”

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Reform’s manifesto, which they call a “contract”, says that “essential skills, mainly around healthcare, must be the only exception” to migration.

Pressed on how wide his exemption would be, Mr Farage said he hopes enough nurses and doctors will be trained “not to need anybody from overseas within the space of a few years”.

He said that work permits should be separate to immigration, adding: “If you get a job for an American TV station and you stay 48 hours longer than your work permit, they will smash your front door down, put you in handcuffs and deport you.

“We allow all of these routes, whether it’s coming into work, whether it’s coming as a student, we have allowed all of these to become routes for long-term migration.”

Asked if he would put a cap on his essential skills exemption, he said: “We will. I can’t tell you the numbers right now, I don’t have all the figures. What I can tell you is anyone that comes in will not be allowed to stay long-term. That’s the difference.”

Pressed if that was a commitment to a cap under a Reform UK government, he suggested he would set out further detail ahead of the next election, telling Coates: “Ask me in four years’ time, all right?”

Mr Farage was speaking after the government published an immigration white paper which pledged to ban overseas care workers as part of a package of measures to bring down net migration.

The former Brexit Party leader claimed the proposals were a “knee jerk reaction” to his party’s success at the local elections and accused the prime minister of not having the vigour to “follow them through”.

However he said he supports the “principle” of banning foreign care workers and conceded he might back some of the measures if they are put to a vote in parliament.

He said: “If it was stuff that did actually bind the government, there might be amendments on this that you would support. But I’m not convinced.”