Actor Gerard Depardieu can be tried for rape: French court

A Paris court on Thursday rejected a bid by Gerard Depardieu to have rape charges against him dropped, the chief prosecutor in the case said, raising the prospect of a trial for the iconic French actor.

Depardieu, 73, was charged with raping and sexually assaulting a young French actress at his home in Paris in 2018, an accusation he has called "baseless".

But Paris chief prosecutor Remy Heitz said in a statement that there was "serious and confirmed evidence that justifies Gerard Depardieu to remain charged" in the case brought by the actress, Charlotte Arnould.

The case will now go back to the prosecuting magistrate who is to resume her work on the case, Heitz said.

Arnould, who was present in the courthouse, declined to comment on the decision, but her lawyer, Carine Durrieu-Diebolt, told AFP that her client was "relieved".

Depardieu´s lawyer, Herve Temime, declined to comment.

Arnould filed her complaint in the summer of 2018 when she was 22, saying she had been raped twice by Depardieu in his swank Left Bank mansion in the French capital a few days earlier.

Prosecutors dropped the case in June 2019, citing lack of evidence, but it was reopened the following year after Arnould filed a new complaint. (AFP)