French actor Gérard Depardieu convicted of sexual assault and given 18-month suspended sentence

PARIS (AP) — French movie star Gérard Depardieu was convicted Tuesday of sexually assaulting two women on a set and received an 18-month suspended prison sentence in a case that was widely seen as a post-#MeToo test for the country's film industry.

The 76-year-old Depardieu, one of the most prominent figures in French cinema for decades, must also pay both accusers a total of 29,040 euros (around $32,350) in fines, and the court ordered that his name be listed in the national sex offender database.

The actor was convicted of groping a 54-year-old woman responsible for decorating the set and a 34-year-old assistant during the filming of “Les Volets Verts” (“The Green Shutters”) in 2021.

Depardieu, who has denied the accusations, did not attend the hearing in Paris. His lawyer said that his client would appeal the decision.

The case offered a fresh assessment of how French society and its filmmakers would handle sexual misconduct allegations against a top actor in the wake of the #MeToo movement.

One of the accusers, the set dresser, said she was “very much satisfied” with the verdict.

“I’m very moved,” she told reporters. “That’s a victory for me, really, and a big progress, a step forward. I feel justice was made.”

Her lawyer, Carine Durrieu Diebolt, said “it is the victory of two women, and it is the victory of all women beyond this trial."

“Today we hope to see the end of impunity for an artist in the world of cinema," Durrieu Diebolt said. "I think that with this decision, we can no longer say that he is not a sexual abuser. And today, as the Cannes Film Festival opens, I’d like the film world to spare a thought for Gérard Depardieu’s victims."

A suspended sentence means that Depardieu does not have to go to prison unless he commits another offense. Suspended sentences are common in France for a wide range of crimes.

The court said it took into account Depardieu’s age, his poor health and his criminal record, which included one prior unrelated conviction, although the court offered no details.

Depardieu’s long and storied career — he told the court that he’s made more than 250 films — has turned him into a French movie giant. He was nominated for an Oscar in 1991 for his performance as the swordsman and poet Cyrano de Bergerac.

In recent years, the actor has been accused publicly or in formal complaints of misconduct by more than 20 women, but so far only the sexual assault case has proceeded to court. Some other cases were dropped because of a lack of evidence or an expired statute of limitations.

During the four-day trial in March, Depardieu rejected the accusations, saying he’s “not like that.” He acknowledged using vulgar and sexual language on the film set and that he grabbed the set dresser's hips during an argument, but denied that his behavior was sexual.

The court, composed of a panel of three judges, concluded that Depardieu’s explanations in court were “unpersuasive” and “not credible" and stressed both accusers' “constant, reiterated and substantiated declarations.”

The court also said that both plaintiffs have been faced with an “aggressive” defense strategy “based on comments meant to offend them.” The judges therefore concluded that comments by Depardieu’s lawyer in court aggravated the harm to the accusers and justified higher fines.

Depardieu lawyer Jérémie Assous regretted that the court “considered that questioning the accusations is an additional assault ... which means that now the defense, even in this type of trial, is no longer accepted."

The set dresser, whose duties could include choosing the furniture and paintings that will appear in a movie, said the actor used his legs as pincers to hold her as she squeezed past him in a narrow corridor.

She said he grabbed her hips then started groping her behind and “in front, around.” She ran her hands near her buttocks, hips and pubic area to show where she was touched. She said he then grabbed her chest.

The woman also testified that Depardieu used an obscene expression to ask her to touch his penis and suggested he wanted to rape her. She told the court that the actor’s calm and cooperative attitude during the trial bore no resemblance to his behavior at work.

The other plaintiff, an assistant, said Depardieu groped her buttocks and breasts during three separate incidents on the film set.

The Associated Press does not identify by name people who say they were sexually assaulted unless they consent to be named. Neither woman has done so in this case, although one has agreed to be pictured.

Some figures in the French cinema world have expressed their support for Depardieu. Actors Vincent Perez and Fanny Ardant were among those who took seats on his side of the courtroom.

French media reported last week that Depardieu was shooting a film directed by Ardant in the Azores archipelago, in Portugal.

The actor may have to face other legal proceedings soon.

In 2018, actor Charlotte Arnould accused him of raping her at his home. That case is still active, and in August 2024 prosecutors requested that it go to trial.

For more than a half-century, Depardieu stood as a towering figure in French cinema, a titan known for his commanding physical presence, instinct, sensibility and remarkable versatility.

A bon vivant who overcame a speech impediment and a turbulent youth, Depardieu rose to prominence in the 1970s and became one of France’s most prolific and acclaimed actors, portraying a vast array of characters, from volatile outsiders to deeply introspective figures.

In recent years, his behavior toward women has come under renewed scrutiny, including after a documentary showed him repeatedly making obscene remarks and gestures during a 2018 trip to North Korea.

Actor Juliette Binoche, who presides over the jury for the 78th Cannes Film Festival, said Tuesday that Depardieu is “apparently no longer sacred,” adding “it makes us reflect on the power some people have.”

Associated Press journalists Samuel Petrequin, Catherine Gaschka and Yesica Brumec contributed to this report.

A plaintiff arrives in a Paris court, which is set to deliver a verdict on accusations that French actor Gerard Depardieu sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

A plaintiff speaks with the media outside a Paris court, after a verdict was delivered on accusations that French actor Gerard Depardieu sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

French actor Gerard Depardieu's lawyer Jeremie Assous speaks with the media after a verdict was delivered on accusations that the actor sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

A plaintiff, center, and a plaintiff's lawyer Claude Vincent, second left, outside a Paris court, after a verdict was delivered on accusations that French actor Gerard Depardieu sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

French actor Gerard Depardieu's lawyer Jeremie Assous speaks with the media after a verdict was delivered on accusations that the actor sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

From left, a plaintiff's lawyer Claude Vincent, lawyer Catherine Le Magueresse, a plaintiff, a plaintiff's lawyer Carine Durrieu Diebolt speak with the media outside a Paris court, after a verdict was delivered on accusations that French actor Gerard Depardieu sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

A plaintiff speaks with the media outside a Paris court, after a verdict was delivered on accusations that French actor Gerard Depardieu sexually assaulted two women who were working on a film with him in 2021, in Paris, Tuesday, May 13, 2025. (AP Photo/Thomas Padilla)

FILE - Actor Gerard Depardieu arrives to face trial for the alleged sexual assaults of two women on a film set in 2021, on March 24, 2025 in Paris. (AP Photo/Aurelien Morissard, File)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Becky Pepper-Jackson finished third in the discus throw in West Virginia last year though she was in just her first year of high school. Now a 15-year-old sophomore, Pepper-Jackson is aware that her upcoming season could be her last.

West Virginia has banned transgender girls like Pepper-Jackson from competing in girls and women's sports, and is among the more than two dozen states with similar laws. Though the West Virginia law has been blocked by lower courts, the outcome could be different at the conservative-dominated Supreme Court, which has allowed multiple restrictions on transgender people to be enforced in the past year.

The justices are hearing arguments Tuesday in two cases over whether the sports bans violate the Constitution or the landmark federal law known as Title IX that prohibits sex discrimination in education. The second case comes from Idaho, where college student Lindsay Hecox challenged that state's law.

Decisions are expected by early summer.

President Donald Trump's Republican administration has targeted transgender Americans from the first day of his second term, including ousting transgender people from the military and declaring that gender is immutable and determined at birth.

Pepper-Jackson has become the face of the nationwide battle over the participation of transgender girls in athletics that has played out at both the state and federal levels as Republicans have leveraged the issue as a fight for athletic fairness for women and girls.

“I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Pepper-Jackson said in an interview with The Associated Press that was conducted over Zoom. “It’s something I’m here to do because ... this is important to me. I know it’s important to other people. So, like, I’m here for it.”

She sat alongside her mother, Heather Jackson, on a sofa in their home just outside Bridgeport, a rural West Virginia community about 40 miles southwest of Morgantown, to talk about a legal fight that began when she was a middle schooler who finished near the back of the pack in cross-country races.

Pepper-Jackson has grown into a competitive discus and shot put thrower. In addition to the bronze medal in the discus, she finished eighth among shot putters.

She attributes her success to hard work, practicing at school and in her backyard, and lifting weights. Pepper-Jackson has been taking puberty-blocking medication and has publicly identified as a girl since she was in the third grade, though the Supreme Court's decision in June upholding state bans on gender-affirming medical treatment for minors has forced her to go out of state for care.

Her very improvement as an athlete has been cited as a reason she should not be allowed to compete against girls.

“There are immutable physical and biological characteristic differences between men and women that make men bigger, stronger, and faster than women. And if we allow biological males to play sports against biological females, those differences will erode the ability and the places for women in these sports which we have fought so hard for over the last 50 years,” West Virginia's attorney general, JB McCuskey, said in an AP interview. McCuskey said he is not aware of any other transgender athlete in the state who has competed or is trying to compete in girls or women’s sports.

Despite the small numbers of transgender athletes, the issue has taken on outsize importance. The NCAA and the U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Committees banned transgender women from women's sports after Trump signed an executive order aimed at barring their participation.

The public generally is supportive of the limits. An Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll conducted in October 2025 found that about 6 in 10 U.S. adults “strongly” or “somewhat” favored requiring transgender children and teenagers to only compete on sports teams that match the sex they were assigned at birth, not the gender they identify with, while about 2 in 10 were “strongly” or “somewhat” opposed and about one-quarter did not have an opinion.

About 2.1 million adults, or 0.8%, and 724,000 people age 13 to 17, or 3.3%, identify as transgender in the U.S., according to the Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law.

Those allied with the administration on the issue paint it in broader terms than just sports, pointing to state laws, Trump administration policies and court rulings against transgender people.

"I think there are cultural, political, legal headwinds all supporting this notion that it’s just a lie that a man can be a woman," said John Bursch, a lawyer with the conservative Christian law firm Alliance Defending Freedom that has led the legal campaign against transgender people. “And if we want a society that respects women and girls, then we need to come to terms with that truth. And the sooner that we do that, the better it will be for women everywhere, whether that be in high school sports teams, high school locker rooms and showers, abused women’s shelters, women’s prisons.”

But Heather Jackson offered different terms to describe the effort to keep her daughter off West Virginia's playing fields.

“Hatred. It’s nothing but hatred,” she said. "This community is the community du jour. We have a long history of isolating marginalized parts of the community.”

Pepper-Jackson has seen some of the uglier side of the debate on display, including when a competitor wore a T-shirt at the championship meet that said, “Men Don't Belong in Women's Sports.”

“I wish these people would educate themselves. Just so they would know that I’m just there to have a good time. That’s it. But it just, it hurts sometimes, like, it gets to me sometimes, but I try to brush it off,” she said.

One schoolmate, identified as A.C. in court papers, said Pepper-Jackson has herself used graphic language in sexually bullying her teammates.

Asked whether she said any of what is alleged, Pepper-Jackson said, “I did not. And the school ruled that there was no evidence to prove that it was true.”

The legal fight will turn on whether the Constitution's equal protection clause or the Title IX anti-discrimination law protects transgender people.

The court ruled in 2020 that workplace discrimination against transgender people is sex discrimination, but refused to extend the logic of that decision to the case over health care for transgender minors.

The court has been deluged by dueling legal briefs from Republican- and Democratic-led states, members of Congress, athletes, doctors, scientists and scholars.

The outcome also could influence separate legal efforts seeking to bar transgender athletes in states that have continued to allow them to compete.

If Pepper-Jackson is forced to stop competing, she said she will still be able to lift weights and continue playing trumpet in the school concert and jazz bands.

“It will hurt a lot, and I know it will, but that’s what I’ll have to do,” she said.

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Heather Jackson, left, and Becky Pepper-Jackson pose for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Becky Pepper-Jackson poses for a photograph outside of the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

The Supreme Court stands is Washington, Friday, Jan. 9, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

FILE - Protestors hold signs during a rally at the state capitol in Charleston, W.Va., on March 9, 2023. (AP Photo/Chris Jackson, file)