French prosecutors said Wednesday they have opened a rape investigation against star singer and actor Patrick Bruel and that another complaint has been registered.
Bruel, 66, has faced past accusations of alleged sexual assault and harassment but no charges have ever been brought. His lawyer has rejected the latest allegations.
Prosecutors in the Britanny town of Saint-Malo confirmed to AFP they have started a formal investigation into a woman's claims, made in September 2024, that she was allegedly raped during the British film festival in Dinard in October 2012 when Bruel was jury chairman.
A source close to the inquiry said Bruel had not yet been questioned.
Daniela Elstner, head of the Unifrance body that promotes French cinema, made a separate complaint last month over an alleged attempted rape and sexual assault, a source close to that inquiry told AFP. Elstner's lawyer confirmed the complaint.
The Mediapart news website, which revealed the cases, said that the new complaint concerned events that allegedly happened at a French film festival in Acapulco, Mexico in 1997 when Elstner was an assistant at Unifrance. She is now its director general.
Mediapart reported accounts given by six others who claimed they had suffered alleged sexual assaults by Bruel between 1992 and 2019.
Bruel's lawyer, Christophe Ingrain, told AFP that the singer "maintains he never rejected a refusal (to have sex), never forced anyone into a sexual act or relationship."
Ingrain said that courts had already ruled on some of the past cases raised by Mediapart. Courts in 2020 closed two investigations after complaints the previous year by two massage therapists.
Bruel, who has had a string of top selling albums and appeared in more than 40 movies, had also faced an inquiry into exhibitionism and sexual harassment in Switzerland which was dropped in 2008.
Bruel, who was also for a time a top level poker player, is the latest in a string of French movie and music celebrities to face sexual assault claims. Film legend Gerard Depardieu was sentenced to 18 months in prison last year. His appeal will be heard in November. – AFP
