Director Christophe Ruggia is accused by artist Adèle Haenel of sexual assault when she was a teenager. But according to sources in the file this Tuesday, the investigating judge in charge of the investigation announced on August 22 the end of her investigations. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed this information to AFP. My Fanny Colin and Orly Rezlan, lawyers for Christophe Ruggia, did not wish to react. My Yann Le Bras and Anouck Michelin, advice from Adèle Haenel, neither.
The closure of the judicial investigation comes a little less than two months after a confrontation lasting several hours on June 29 between the actress, 34, and the director, 58, who contests the accusations. The parties can now send their observations, before the prosecution takes its requisitions.
“Playing the pygmalions”
Christophe Ruggia was indicted on January 16, 2020 for “sexual assault on a minor under 15 years old by a person having authority over the victim”, Adèle Haenel being aged 12 to 15 years old at the time of the alleged acts. He was placed under judicial supervision. The actress, rewarded with two Césars, denounced in 2019 to Mediapart the “control” of the director, little known to the general public, during the preparation and filming of the film “Les Diables” (2002).
Then “permanent sexual harassment”, repeated “touching” and “forced kisses on the neck”, when she was a teenager. In a right of reply, Christophe Ruggia described himself as “undoubtedly the first admirer of Adèle Haenel” and refuted “the physical gestures and the behavior of sexual harassment of which she accuses him”. He had admitted to having “made the mistake of playing the pygmalion with the misunderstandings and the obstacles that such a posture gives rise to” and his “control (…) with regard to the actress” with whom he “dreamed of filming new “.
“Widespread complacency”
The actress’s accusations caused an earthquake in French cinema, which had until then remained impervious to the #MeToo movement. Initially refusing to take legal action, Adèle Haenel finally filed a complaint after the opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office on November 6, 2019.
This investigation was then entrusted to an investigating judge. Since then, the actress has several times denounced “the general complacency of the profession towards sexual attackers” in the 7th art. Last May, she announced her break with cinema in a letter to Télérama.