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In a landmark victory, French actress Adele Haenel’s abuser, Christophe Ruggia, has been given a two-year custodial sentence after being found guilty of sexual assault.
The director, 60, will spend his time under house arrest with an electronic bracelet, followed by another two years suspended.
A rocky and emotional two-day court hearing kicked off trial proceedings in early December.
It was initially requested by the prosecutor’s office that Ruggia spend five years behind bars, followed by three years suspended.
His sentence comes six years after Haenel, who starred in Portrait of a Lady on Fire, went public with her accusations against Ruggia, first speaking out in an interview with Mediapart.
The 35-year-old movie star, who is now retired, accused the filmmaker of molesting her over a three-year period.
She said that the abuse began in 2001 when she was shooting for The Devils at the age of just 12. Ruggia was 36.
Haenel added that she continued to experience sexual assault at the hands of Ruggia into the promotional and festival tour of the thriller/drama, which was released in 2002 and also starred Vincent Rottiers.
The project, titled Les Diables in French, marked Haenel’s screen debut, and it quickly propelled her to prominence in the European entertainment industry.
Still a teenager, she went on to secure roles in Water Lilies (2007), which also earned her a Cesar Award nomination.
The child actress has since starred in Suzanne (2013), Love at First Fight (2014), BPM (2017), The Trouble with You (2018), and, most notably, Portrait of a Lady on Fire in 2019.
She put her entire career on the line when she spoke out about the mistreatment she suffered from Ruggia, as France was yet to take hold of the #MeToo movement, meaning her case held significant weight.
Ruggia has continued to deny the accusations against him and suggested to the court that Haenel simply wanted ‘revenge’ because he did not make a second movie with her. Her lawyer refuted the claim.
On the second day of proceedings, Haenel stormed out of the courtroom after yelling, ‘Shut your mouth! when Ruggia gave his evidence, implying that he tried to protect her as a teen by advising her on how to avoid being bullied at school.
She has received little open support from the industry after originally coming forward with her story.
In 2020, she walked out of the Cesar Awards ceremony when Roman Polanski was given the best director gong for An Officer and A Spy amid his unresolved rape charge and other allegations of assault, which he has denied.
Haenel wrote an open letter three years later, announcing that she would be leaving the industry because of its ‘general complacency’ towards sexual predators, including Gérard Depardieu, Roman Polanski, and Dominique Boutonnat.
She previously told German magazine FAQ that she felt she had no choice but to retire after ‘[she] tried to change something from within’ that she ‘doesn’t want to be part of anymore’.
Her final movie was to be The Empire, directed by Bruno Dumont. However, she left the film as she called it a ‘dark, sexist, and racist world that was defended’.
‘I tried to discuss it with Dumont because I thought a dialogue was possible. I wanted to believe for the umpteenth time that it was not intentional. But it’s intentional,’ she shared.
‘Just as they make fun of the victims, of people in a situation of weakness. The intention was to make a sci-fi film with an all-white cast—and therefore a racist narrative. I didn’t want to support this.’
She has indicated that she now wants to focus on theatre work.
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