Appeal Court Convicts Christophe Ruggia Again of Sexual Assaults Committed Against Actress Adèle Haenel While She Was a Minor
In the first instance, he had been sentenced last year to four years in prison. On Friday, April 17, the director Christophe Ruggia was once again found guilty of the sexual assaults committed on Adèle Haenel between 2001 and 2004, when the actress was aged 12 to 14. The Paris Court of Appeal, in passing, increased his sentence to five years in prison, two of which are to be served under electronic monitoring.
Following the hearing, Adèle Haenel spoke of “a judicial journey that has been quite trying and difficult”, and which ends six years after her initial accusations. “I think of all the children victims of pedocriminality”, she added, before promising: “All my life will be dedicated to justice and the advancement of human rights. It is to all these children and all these women that I think, to tell them that they are not alone.”
Adèle Haenel, le cinéma et #MeToo
Christophe Ruggia, now 61, was found guilty of acts that occurred in the wake of the filming of the film Les Diables, in which Adèle Haenel held the leading role. The actress would go to the director’s home every Saturday afternoon at the time. In his ruling, the court describes a teenager “trapped” by an adult “three times her senior”, says there is “no doubt” about the reality of the alleged gestures and underscores their “verifiable consequences on the actress’s mental health”.
The case, which began in 2019 when Adèle Haenel publicly accused Christophe Ruggia in Mediapart, has helped bring #MeToo to the fore in French cinema. The actress became, notably after her dramatic departure from the César Awards ceremony in 2020, one of the movement’s most visible figures. Since then, the actress has withdrawn from cinema, dedicating herself to theatre and activism.
