French film director found guilty of sexual assault but spared jail in landmark #MeToo trial
French film director found guilty of sexual assault but spared jail in landmark #MeToo trial
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Christophe Ruggia given two years’ house arrest over incidents involving actor Adele Haenel in early 2000s when she was 12 to 15 years old. A Paris court has found the filmmaker Christophe Ruggia guilty of sexual assault on the French actor Adele Haenel in the early 2000s, when she was between 12 and 15 years old, but spared him jail. Ruggia was sentenced on Monday to two years under house arrest with an electronic bracelet plus a two-year suspended sentence. He had denied any wrongdoing.
Haenel, now 35, was the first top actor in France to accuse the film industry of turning a blind eye to sexual abuse after the #MeToo movement broke out. She accused Ruggia in 2019 of having repeatedly touched her inappropriately during and after filming of the movie Les Diables or The Devils in the early 2000s. France’s Society of Film Directors, which had chosen Ruggia as its co-president and vice-president several times between 2003 and 2019, expelled him from the organisation shortly after Haenel’s accusations emerged.
