A confrontation began Thursday, before a Parisian investigating judge, between the artist Adèle Haenel and the director Christophe Ruggia, whom she accuses of sexual assault when she was a young teenager, sources familiar with the matter told AFP. AFP. Christophe Ruggia, now 58, was indicted on January 16, 2020 for “sexual assault on a 15-year-old minor by a person having authority over the victim”, Adèle Haenel being aged 12 to 15 at the time of the alleged facts. He was placed under judicial supervision. He disputes the charges. Lawyers for both parties declined to comment before the confrontation.
Adèle Haenel’s accusations, first revealed in a long investigation by Mediapart, had caused an earthquake in French cinema, which had until then remained impervious to the movement
Three days later, Christophe Ruggia had sent a right of reply to Mediapart, describing himself as “probably the first admirer of Adèle Haenel” and refuting “the physical gestures and the behavior of sexual harassment of which she (the) accuses” . “But I made the mistake of playing the pygmalion with the misunderstandings and obstacles that such a posture arouses. The influence of the director with regard to the actress he had directed and with whom he dreamed of shooting again, ”he wrote.
Initially refusing to take legal action, Adèle Haenel finally filed a complaint a few days 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 repeatedly denounced what she will define as “the general complacency of the profession vis-à-vis sexual aggressors” in the 7th art.
The actress notably made a sensational exit during the César ceremony in 2020 to oppose the coronation of Roman Polanski (awarded the César for best director for his film J’accuse), when he was caught up in accusations elders of rape. Last May, she recorded her break with the cinema in a letter to Télérama.
