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French courts drop rape case against film director Luc Besson

The Paris court of appeal on Tuesday confirmed the dropping of rape accusations against French film director Luc Besson, one of the highest profile controversies of the #MeToo era in the country.

French courts drop rape case against film director Luc Besson
French director Luc Besson. Photo by Stefanie LOOS / AFP

Dutch-Belgian actress Sand Van Roy had accused Besson — director of the “Fifth Element” and “Leon” — of raping her over a two-year on-off relationship, and filed a complaint against him in May 2018.

Prosecutors dropped the case in February 2019 citing lack of evidence, but a new investigation was opened later that year after Van Roy brought fresh charges.

A French magistrate then closed the case in December 2021 and prosecutors asked for it to be dropped in April.

Besson had always denied the accusations, describing the case in 2019 as “a lie from A to Z”.

“The court confirmed my client’s innocence… Luc Besson regrets these four lost years,” his lawyer Thierry Marembert said after the verdict.

But Van Roy’s lawyer Antoine Gitton said an appeal would immediately be filed for his client with France’s Court of Cassation.

Besson has admitted having a relationship with Van Roy, who had minor roles in his films “Taxi 5” and “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets”.

She filed the initial complaint for rape in May 2018 hours after meeting Besson, before filing another complaint two months later for other alleged rapes and sexual assaults.

At least three other women have made allegations of sexual harassment against Besson but he has always denied all the allegations.

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CRIME

One dead, several injured in Paris suburb shooting

One person was killed and six injured overnight in a gritty northern Paris suburb in a shooting likely linked to drug trafficking, prosecutors and the mayor said Saturday.

One dead, several injured in Paris suburb shooting

The attack in a parking lot near a cultural centre at Sevran, which lies between central Paris and the city’s main airport Charles de Gaulle, took place around 11:45 pm (2145 GMT) Friday, prosecutors said.

Upon arriving on the scene, police found four injured people strewn on the ground. One died soon after and the three others were taken to hospitals in a serious condition, a police source said.

Three more people injured by bullets were later taken to hospital, the source said, adding that two men had arrived in the parking lot in a car and one of them got out and opened fire.

The attackers then fled.

Sevran mayor Stephane Blanchet told AFP “it was clearly a settling of scores linked to drug trafficking.”

“There is a need to establish order and eradicate trafficking,” he said. “Those idiots fired live bullets and did not heed appeals for calm”.

Police have opened an investigation into intentional homicide by an organised gang, they said. No arrests had been by Saturday morning.

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