French actor Gérard Depardieu has been questioned by police over renewed allegations of sexual assault, a spokesman for his lawyer's office told dpa on Monday.
The 75-year-old was able to leave the police station in Paris after being questioned, his lawyer Christian Saint-Palais said on Monday evening. "The police custody was ended. He was not kept at the police station." The actor has denied the allegations made against him, the lawyer said.
In February a film-set painter accused Depardieu of sexual harassment during the shooting of the film "Les Volets Verts" ("The Green Shutters") in 2021, while another woman recently accused him of non-consensual sexual touching and making obscene remarks on the set of the short film "Le Magicien et les Siamois" in 2014.
The Paris public prosecutor's office merely stated that it could confirm or communicate nothing at present. Possible accusations would first have to be assessed, and those involved in the proceedings would be the first to be informed, it said.
Police custody in France is limited in time. Suspects can then be brought before the public prosecutor's office or an investigating judge. Preliminary investigations can thus turn into preliminary proceedings.
Depardieu, a veteran of French cinema, has faced a number of allegations of sexual misconduct in recent years.
He was charged with the rape of actress Charlotte Arnould in 2020 in a case that remains open. Depardieu denies the accusation.
The award-winning actor described himself last year as the victim of "media lynching" in an open letter in the daily Le Figaro. He said that he was "neither a rapist nor a predator. I'm just a man...".
Several dozen artists - including actress Charlotte Rampling and musician and former French First Lady Carla Bruni - also complained that the presumption of innocence was being disregarded in the case of Depardieu, "probably the greatest of all actors."
He found himself under renewed scrutiny in December after vulgar comments about women and young girls made in a 2018 trip to North Korea were broadcast on French television.
France's minister of culture at the time decided not to strip the actor of the Legion of Honour, the highest French order of merit.
However, Depardieu was strippepd of the National Order of Quebec and had his figure at the Paris Wax Museum removed.