Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
The Schmooze

Gerard Depardieu Skips Court for DSK Role

French film star Gerard Depardieu failed to show up in court to face drink driving charges on Tuesday because he was preparing to play disgraced former IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in a film, his lawyer said.

The no-show means the case will turn into a full trial – guaranteeing yet another day in the spotlight for the garrulous actor currently caught up in a scandal over his tax status.

It could also lead to the rotund, 64-year-old star of “Cyrano de Bergerac” and “Asterix and Obelix” getting a tougher sentence if convicted – in theory up to two years in prison.

“Despite wanting to be there and meet the judges and in no way to escape justice, Gerard Depardieu absolutely could not be present,” his lawyer Eric de Caumont told a throng of reporters outside the Paris courtroom.

He said his client was in Montenegro preparing to play Strauss-Kahn, who was seen as the next Socialist president of France before a U.S. sex scandal bought down his career last year.

Depardieu is accused of crashing his scooter in Paris with more than three times the legal limit of alcohol in his blood. No one else was injured in the accident.

The actor did not have to attend the court hearing. But he could have faced a much lighter sentence, perhaps even a small fine, if he had attended Tuesday’s preparatory hearing and admitted his guilt.

As part of a wider crackdown on drink driving, French magistrates have imposed increasingly tough sentences in cases that go to full trial.

Depardieu hit the headlines last month after he bought a house over the border in Belgium, spurring accusations he was trying to dodge a proposed new tax on millionaires.

Last week, he accepted a Russian passport, provoking even fiercer charges that he had abandoned his homeland.

Depardieu on Monday denied he was leaving France for tax reasons, insisting that he remained French.

A few months before the scooter incident, a car driver accused Depardieu of assault and battery during an altercation in Paris. Last year, the actor outraged passengers on an Air France flight by urinating into a bottle in the aisle.

A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

At a time when other newsrooms are closing or cutting back, the Forward has removed its paywall and invested additional resources to report on the ground from Israel and around the U.S. on the impact of the war, rising antisemitism and polarized discourse..

Readers like you make it all possible. Support our work by becoming a Forward Member and connect with our journalism and your community.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

Join our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.