The director Philippe Caubère expressed, Tuesday January 9, regrets for having started in 2012, at the age of 61, an intimate relationship for four months with a minor aged 16, in a press release sent to Agence France-Presse .

“I confirm that I had an intimate relationship with P. for a few months when she was a minor (between the ages of 16 and 17), and the significant age difference between her and me should have led me not to initiate such a relationship,” said the theater man, now 73.

A preliminary investigation is underway into these facts for “sexual assault on a minor over 15 years old by a person in authority”, the Créteil public prosecutor’s office announced on Monday. This “offense (…) in no way concerns the question of his consent”, underlines Philippe Caubère. The latter explains having maintained intimate relations with the teenager between April 2012, at the age of “16 years and 11 months, and until July 2012”. He specifies that there would have been no “vaginal or anal penetration”.

“I am aware that the sudden media coverage of this procedure, which has lasted for a year and for which I have never been heard, is linked to my decision to provide my support to the actor Gérard Depardieu, in the context of “a controversial column recently published in Le Figaro”, he continues.

“We need time to understand what happened and dare to file a complaint”

Mr. Caubère’s lawyer, Me Marie Dosé, noted on Monday that the young complainant had been contacted in 2018 by the police and that she had not wished to file a complaint for these facts on that date.

This complaint is “the result of a long period of reflection”, replied Me Negar Haeri, counsel for the young woman, stressing that “we need time when we are initially a minor of 16 years to understand this happened and dare to file a complaint”.

According to the two lawyers, Philippe Caubère was not heard at this stage.

A figure in the theater scene, the actor had already been the subject of a rape complaint dismissed in 2019. His accuser at the time had denounced in March 2018 acts of rape committed eight years earlier, in 2010, on his person. The Créteil public prosecutor’s office closed the proceedings, as there was “no element” allowing “to corroborate the complainant’s statements on the lack of consent”.

This complainant was convicted in September 2021 for defamation, a conviction including the payment of 1,000 euros “in compensation for the moral damage” of the artist.