Accused of sexual assault on minor by actress Adèle Haenel, Christophe Ruggia was sentenced to two years in prison under electronic bracelet on Monday, February 3.
Director Christophe Ruggia was sentenced to four years in prison, including two years closed, but fitted out under electronic bracelet, this Monday, February 3, 2025. The Paris Criminal Court rendered his judgment this Monday, February 3 in the case which oppose Adèle Haenelwho accuses him “sexual assault on minor by person having authority”. It is also prohibited from activities related to minors for five years. Last December, the prosecution requested five years in prison, including two farms under electronic bracelet.
During the trial on December 9 and 10, Christophe Ruggia, director known for films Devils And In turmoilwas to respond to accusation of assaults which would have been held at his home from September 2001 to February 2004, after the film filming Devils (released in 2002 and which stages an incestuous love between a brother and his sister both orphans, and in which Adèle Haenel, then child, played), when she was between 12 and 14 years old. The filmmaker has denied the accusations and remains presumed innocent.
“It looks like a couple, it’s not normal”
This affair is considered to be the beginning of a French #MeToo in the cinema, since the actress denounced the director’s abuses in 2019, first in Médiapart before filing a complaint. In the referral order to the criminal court, established before the trial, it is said that Adeèle Haenel denounced in “detailed way, constant and specifies several episodes of touching of a sexual nature on her sex and his chest while providing Details on the progress of the facts, their systemic character during visits to the home of Christophe Ruggia, the configuration of the premises, their respective positons and the operating mode “. It is also described there “the state of amazement” of the actress at the time of the facts by the magistrate as well as “the psychological repercussions” of the denounced aggressions, which have been entrusted to relatives “over the years”.
Several professionals have also described their “discomfort” in the face of working conditions imposed on children, but especially the “invasive”, “moved” behavior of the director on the set. “It doesn’t go, it looks like a couple it’s not normal,” said a script. The referral order consulted by AFP also specifies that “the absence of consent”, therefore “constraint”, is characterized by the age of Adèle Haenel at the time of the facts and “the important difference in age Between the two protagonists “.
“But close your mouth!”
During the trial, Adèle Haenel had retraced the afternoons spent at the director, describing touching. “He tells me that he is in love, that I am an adult in a child’s body,” she explained, as reported by the journalist of SheCécile Ollivier, on X. accusing the director, who denies the facts, of being a “big liar”, she had also shared her “shame” and the “disgust” she feels. “I want us to do justice to this child, who got out alone,” she said, saying that she was already “proud to have held up to this painful procedure”.
During the second day of audience, Adèle Haenel wondered against the director called to the bar. While the latter assured that she had tried to protect the actress in her beginnings in the cinema, she exclaimed: “But firm your mouth!” She then got up before leaving the courtroom. She returned to it after half an hour.
At the helm, Christophe Ruggia had denied the facts criticized for him and mentioned a “revenge” on the part of the actress, who, according to him, would be disappointed that there was no second film: “It was necessary Too in France, and lacks bowl, it falls on me. “