French cinema legend Gerard Depardieu faces a suspended prison sentence and registration as a sex offender if convicted by a court today.
During the six-week trial, two women testified who said the 76-year-old actor groped them while working on a film in Paris in 2021.
Depardieu denies the allegations.
"It's perfectly possible to be a great actor and a great father and still commit a crime."
"You are not here to condemn French cinema."
"You are here to judge Gérard Depardieu, just like any other citizen," prosecutor Laurent Guy said in his closing arguments on March 27.
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The prosecutor is asking for Depardieu to be sentenced to a suspended sentence of 18 months in prison, a fine of 20.000 euros, and for Depardieu to be entered on the sex offenders' register.
Claude Vincent, the lawyer for one of the two women who sued the actor, described Depardieu as "misogynistic" and a "case study in sexism."
In Depardieu's defense, his lawyer Jeremy Asso sought an acquittal and said the prosecution team was "more militant than lawyerly."
"They can't stand that there should be a defense at all. They think that every defense is an additional attack," he told the court.
The alleged attacks took place in September 2021 when Depardieu was filming a film. The Green Shutters (Green Eyelids) about an aging actor who has come to terms with the fact that he is on the verge of death and is no longer at his full strength.
It was the first time the actor had appeared in court on charges of sexual assault.
Several other women have made similar allegations against him in the media, and the alleged rape case could lead to another legal case against Depardieu.
The first plaintiff, a set designer, told the court that after an argument, Depardieu grabbed her between her legs and held her hips.
Another woman, an assistant director, said the actor touched her buttocks and breasts through her clothes three times.
Depardieu denied the allegations, saying only that he may have accidentally touched the women or held on to them to keep from falling.
"My name is dragged through the mud and I am showered with insults."
"This trial is a special experience for me. Watching all this anger, the police, the media."
"It's like I'm in a science fiction movie, except this isn't science fiction. This is life," Depardieu said at the end of the trial.
He thanked the prosecutors and defense for, he said, allowing him to learn how the courts work.
"Maybe these lessons will help me as inspiration if I play a lawyer one day," he said.
Depardieu said he had not worked for three years since sexual allegations against him began to emerge.
However, earlier this month it was announced that he had begun working in the Azores on a film directed by his friend, actress Fanny Ardant.
Depardieu plays a magician on a mysterious island, media reports.
Ardan plays with Depardieu in the film The Green Shutters, and at the trial she spoke in his defense.
"Genius, in whatever form it takes, carries within it elements of the extravagant, the untamed, the dangerous. [Depardieu] is both a monster and a saint," she says.
Another veteran French actress has sided with Depardieu.
In a rare interview with French television, 90-year-old Brigitte Bardot (90) expressed regret that "talented people who touch a girl's butt are put in the deepest dungeon."
"I'm not into feminism. I love men," Bardo said.
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