Gérard Depardieu gets film role as he awaits sex assault verdict
Gérard Depardieu, the French actor who stood trial on sexual assault charges in March, is to appear in a film despite his claim that the allegations had ended his career.
Depardieu, 76, who denies the accusations, has taken a role in a film being made in Portugal, while awaiting the verdict, which is due next week.
The film, Elle regardait sans plus rien voir (She looked without seeing anything any more), is directed by Fanny Ardant, the actress, who also wrote the screenplay, according to the newspaper Libération. Ardant, a close friend of Depardieu, testified in his defence during the trial.
The Portuguese-financed film, which is said to be a love story involving two women, is being shot on Sao Miguel, the largest island in
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The Sun
31 minutes ago
- The Sun
Maya Jama's boyfriend Ruben Dias flies out to Love Island to take her on romantic date
MAYA Jama's boyfriend Rúben Dias has jetted out to Love Island's Mallorca base for a romantic date night. The ITV2 host, 30, and Manchester City ace Rúben, 27, have been dating since the end of last year. 7 7 7 She met the defender in September at the MTV Europe Music Awards, two months after announcing her split from rapper Stormzy. The couple's relationship is going from strength to strength and now he has headed to the holiday resort for a swanky dinner. Maya captured herself travelling in a car before she danced around to a tune on the radio in the passenger seat. She looked glam for her night out, styling her raven locks into waves and opting for fresh make up, with statement earrings to accessorise. In the swanky restaurant, she captured a server chopping up steak tartre and wrote in her caption: "Only just got into this raw s***. "Still bugs me out." Another slide then saw her about to tuck into a more well-done steak, served up with tomatoes and chips. Their happy night came after the first beauty booted out from the 2025 ITV2 matchmaking series came to light, in what was a busy night for Maya. The Love Island anchor and Ruben were spotted for the first time together in public on New Year's Eve, when they shared another romantic dinner. A source at the time said: 'Maya and Ruben swapped details at the EMAs and have chatted since, but things went up a gear in early December. 'When Ruben got injured and had to miss the congested new year fixtures, he jumped at the chance to see in 2025 with Maya in Spain. ROMEO RUBEN Ruben is no stranger to romantic displays. In April, Maya returned home to a bouquet of roses following a recent holiday. Maya added no caption to the image slide, simply holding the red blooms up to the camera. Maya Jama and Stormzy's relationship timeline 2016 - Stormzy and Maya Jama first got together when she was 20 and the couple quickly won over the hearts of the public. 2018 - The couple moved in together in southwest London with the dog they shared, Enzo. 2019 – They announced their split after a four year romance. 2021 – Maya meets and gets engaged to basketball player Ben Simmons. July, 2022 – Maya calls off her engagement. November, 2022 - Maya and Stormzy kissed at the MTV VMAs in Dusseldorf, Germany. May, 2023 – The Sun revealed how Maya had been visiting Stormzy at his London home. August, 2023 - Maya and Stormzy confirmed their relationship was back on when they were spotted strolling hand-in-hand on holiday. December, 2023 - Maya goes Instagram official again with her man. July, 2024 – Maya and Stormzy announce their split And it's not the first time she's been treated to an impressive floral selection as back in January, the former Radio 1 DJ showcased another selection of roses with fans claiming "they're from Ruben." NEXT STEPS The Sun was recently first to report how t he loved-up pair were getting serious, and had taken their relationship to the next level. A source said: 'Maya and Rúben are getting more serious and she has met his mum Bernadette. 'She is very happy and in a great place in her personal life and her career. "It's shaping up to be a very exciting year for Maya.' She also shared her first picture with her footballer man as they enjoyed a pre Love Island break in Italy. Earlier in the week, Maya uploaded a short clip and wrote: "perv cam," as Ruben could be seen rubbing sun tan lotion on his body while in swimming shorts. Recently, it was also revealed Maya has started taking Portuguese lessons. Speaking about her take on relationships previously, Maya said: 'I'm such a lover but I am a big leaver as well. 'I know what makes me happy and I know what I like — and this is no disrespect to anyone I've been in a relationship with, but if it's not that then I will leave it. 'I only want you if you are going to add to that or make it better, otherwise I am not really on it.' 7 7 7 7
Sky News
34 minutes ago
- Sky News
Ten killed in Austria school shooting - with one teenager spared because he was off sick
Students and adults are among 10 victims who were killed after a gunman opened fire at a secondary school in the Austrian city of Graz. Interior minister Gerhard Karner said earlier that a further 12 people were injured in the shooting at the BORG Dreierschützengasse high school in Austria's second-biggest city. He gave the figure before it was confirmed that a person in hospital with life-threatening injuries had become the 10th person to die. It is not clear if this reduces the number of those injured to 11. The interior minister also said the suspect was a former pupil of the school who didn't finish his studies. Police have confirmed that the 21-year-old Austrian gunman was found dead in the toilets of the school after the shootings and was operating alone. Nobody can believe it happened here When 'M' - a 16-year-old student - saw mentions of a school shooting on his phone, he assumed it was yet another tragedy in the US. But it couldn't have been closer to home. Three students in his class had been killed - his own cousin had been shot in the shoulder. M only escaped the carnage because he was off school sick. After the terror and panic of Tuesday morning, an eerie calm has settled over these streets. People stand in silence staring past the wire fence that guards the school - through the windows you can see the still-lit corridors; a handful of police officers standing guard outside the main entrance. There are, no doubt, many more police inside the school - out of our view, still gathering evidence - trying to answer the question that's on everyone's minds: why? Why did a former student take two guns - seemingly legally owned - into his former classrooms, and open fire? It's reported a 'farewell letter' was found by authorities at the gunman's home. But can that really provide answers to such a senseless loss of young life? M knows he will never feel secure walking through these corridors again, in a school and town he said was always quiet and safe. Austria has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in Europe, but mass shootings have been - before Tuesday - extremely rare. A national conversation about its gun laws and ownership loopholes must surely follow these coming days of national mourning. Authorities say the suspect had two weapons - reported to be a shotgun and a pistol - which he appeared to have owned legally. A gun expert told Austrian national broadcaster ORF that shotguns could easily be bought in the country once someone turns 18, while purchasing pistols required the buyer to undergo a psychological evaluation. Police have said they did not have information about his possible motive. Footage shared online revealed how gunshots and screaming could be heard after the suspect entered the school before opening fire. French education minister Elisabeth Borne has said that one of those who died was a "young fellow citizen" of France. It came as the mother of a child who survived the shooting retold the distressing moment she received a phone call from her son. "My son called me to say he was in school and that he was being shot and that he thought he was going to die," she said. She only found out two hours later that he was still alive. Special forces were among those sent to the school, just under a mile from Graz's historic centre, after a call at 10am local time (9am UK time) on Tuesday. About an hour and half later, police wrote on X that the school had been evacuated and everyone had been taken to a safe meeting point. Police deployed in large numbers, with emergency vehicles guarding the area around the school and with at least one police helicopter flying above. Graz is located in the southeast of the country and about 300,000 people live there. A 'dark day' Austrian Chancellor Christian Stocker said there would be three days of national mourning, with the Austrian flag lowered to half-mast and a national minute of mourning at 10am on Wednesday. He said that it was "a dark day in the history of our country". President Alexander Van der Bellen said that "this horror cannot be captured in words". "These were young people who had their whole lives ahead of them. A teacher who accompanied them on their way," he said. Well-wishers later lit candles and placed them in the main square in Graz city centre on Tuesday night as a tribute to the shooting victims. People were seen quietly reflecting as the city tried to come to terms with the deadly attack. The school where the attack took place had earlier posted a message on Instagram following the tragedy. The message is written in German, the official language of Austria, and translates in English to: "It was a really terrible day that deeply impacted and affected us all. "Let us continue to stand together as a school community and support one another.
Reuters
39 minutes ago
- Reuters
Insight: Egypt's crackdown drives Sudanese refugees on new route to Libya and beyond
CAIRO/ATHENS/BRUSSELS, June 11 (Reuters) - Bahr el-Din Yakoub fled Sudan to seek sanctuary in Egypt after a missile ripped through his home in Khartoum and killed four of his friends. But economic hardship and a crackdown on refugees in Egypt pushed him onwards, first along dangerous desert smuggling routes into northeastern Libya, and then on the perilous sea crossing to the Greek island of Crete. Yakoub, 25, is one of a small but growing number of Sudanese refugees who are giving up on Egypt and taking their chances in Libya, rather than returning home where civil war has been raging since April 2023, according to migrants, smugglers, aid workers and activists. While the flight of tens of thousands of Sudanese to Libya via their common border has been documented, the trend of Sudanese nationals feeling they have no option but to take the northern route out of Egypt has not previously been reported. For this story, Reuters spoke with 32 Sudanese refugees. While a few are still in Egypt, most described how they had moved on due to the difficult conditions there, making it to Libya, Greece and France. And as more Sudanese head to Libya, where the situation can be precarious for refugees, more are boarding boats for Europe. In the first five months of 2025, the number of Sudanese nationals arriving in Europe jumped 134% from a year earlier, even as overall numbers of people crossing from North Africa declined, according to preliminary figures from the U.N.'s refugee agency UNHCR. "The sea was rough and it was a very difficult trip, but we were exhausted by all that we endured in Libya. We had no other choice, either we cross or die," Yakoub said, adding that he had been detained, arrested and ill-treated by Libyan authorities and militias. Europe has supported the Libyan coastguard, which returns migrants stopped at sea to detention centres, and has funded Libyan border management programmes. A U.N. fact-finding mission concluded in 2023 that crimes against humanity had been committed against migrants in some Libyan detention centres. Major General Ibrahim Al-Arbd, head of Libya's Department to Combat Illegal Migration in the eastern Libyan district of al-Butnan, said as of January, 20,000-25,000 Sudanese had crossed into Libya via Egypt since the Sudan war started. He said many of them held refugee status in Egypt but had struggled to settle there due to economic hardship. He said in May that 200-250 Sudanese were crossing per week and, as summer approaches, he expected the number to rise. Since the war between Sudan's army and the Rapid Support Forces started, more than 4 million Sudanese have been driven into neighbouring countries, according to UNHCR. By far the largest number, 1.5 million, fled north to Egypt. Although Egypt initially allowed visa-free entry for all but working-age Sudanese men, it limited entries after a surge in arrivals, leading to more refugees using smuggling routes to reach the country, according to migrants, migration lawyers and aid workers. Securing residency in Egypt - a crucial step for obtaining access to basic services such as health and education - also became increasingly difficult, with significant delays and financial barriers, they said. Egypt's Foreign Ministry and State Information Service (SIS) did not respond to requests for comment. Mahmoud Fawzi, Egypt's Minister of Parliamentary and Legal Affairs and Political Communication, denied any restrictions had been placed on issuing residency permits to Sudanese migrants. For many, the process, which required a deposit of about $1,000 under an August 2023 decree, was unaffordable, leaving them living on the fringes of society. Some instead undertook the lengthy project of acquiring U.N. refugee status. But a government crackdown last year put those who had not paid at risk of being rounded up or deported, regardless of their refugee status, according to three migration lawyers in Egypt who have handled hundreds of such cases. Rights groups and migration lawyers said there has been an increase in deportations from Egypt since the passage of a new asylum law at the end of 2024 which placed refugee approval and registration under government control instead of the UNHCR. "The sense of insecurity created by this new situation among refugees and asylum seekers, combined with their inability to return to their own country, has led them to seek safety beyond Egypt, facing the perils of further migration," said Mohamed Lotfy, director of the Egyptian Commission for Rights and Freedoms, a non-governmental organisation in Egypt. Fawzi said there was no bias against Sudanese nationals and they receive all their rights. He said no deportations happen unless people violate the law, or choose to return home. After leaving Khartoum a few weeks into the war, Yakoub moved three times in search of safety within Sudan. When he couldn't find refuge, he paid smugglers to take him to Egypt. He believed the three-day journey across the desert would lead him to safety and stability, but life in Egypt proved difficult. After arriving in Cairo in January 2024, he slept on cold streets for days, waiting to register with UNHCR. Eventually, he gave up, saying the waiting time was too long. He moved into a small apartment with eight other Sudanese men and worked sporadically as a day labourer. Still, without proper documentation, he risked arrest as authorities began rounding up migrants without papers and deporting them. "The conditions there were not suitable for a refugee ... I did not have the proper documentation, and I was running from the authorities all the time. There was no way I could stay," he said, speaking to Reuters from a migrant camp outside Athens. "I was afraid of getting arrested and being sent back to Sudan, so I went to Libya," he said, "But I found the situation there much worse." Critics of the asylum law say its criteria for determining refugee status are vague and it jeopardises the legal protection of those already recognised as refugees - including those with UNHCR documentation. Lotfy, whose organisation provides legal support to migrants, said the new law appeared to have emboldened security forces further, with a rise in police reports and cases against Sudanese and sub-Saharan Africans. His organisation has documented dozens of cases where police confiscated UNHCR papers before deporting refugees, he said. Egypt's Fawzi denied any refugees or asylum seekers registered with UNHCR had been deported. Numbers of deportations are not made public but according to two Egyptian security sources speaking on condition of anonymity, the security services had deported nearly 21,000 Sudanese, as of the end of March 2025, for their illegal presence or for violating Egypt's laws. Rights group Amnesty International has also documented the detention of migrants in Egypt in what it called cruel and inhuman conditions ahead of such deportations, which it says violate international law. Egyptian officials say the government has shown generosity by absorbing so many Sudanese despite economic pressures such as double-digit inflation and a dollar crunch. Fawzi said everyone benefits from national subsidy schemes. Migrants in Egypt who spoke to Reuters disputed this, as did an internal EU commission report in 2024 seen by Reuters. It said about 1.5 million of the 9 million migrants Egypt says it has taken in were in vulnerable situations. Of them, nearly 1 million were registered as refugees and asylum seekers as of May 2025, according to the UNHCR. "Migrants and refugees are not entitled to domestic subsidy schemes or social protection programs and a large number of them have become food insecure," the report said, adding that this had prompted many to move onwards. Five Western diplomats and EU officials said Cairo has attempted to pressure Brussels into increasing financial aid - in exchange for stopping migrants from heading to Europe. Tineke Strik, a member of the European Parliament and rapporteur for Egypt, said during a visit in December she met Fawzi and he asked her, "Imagine if our border guards took a four-week holiday. What would happen then?" "They are really using the migration card to get money from the EU," Strik said. Fawzi declined to comment. In March, the EU announced a 7.4 billion euro funding package for Egypt as part of a push to stem migrant flows. Anti-immigration rhetoric has surged throughout the EU since more than a million people, mainly from Syria, arrived via the Mediterranean in 2015. This hostility has been exploited by right-wing and nationalist parties, pushing governments to adopt increasingly restrictive migration policies focused on returns. In recent months, the EU and member states have proposed policies criticised by human rights group to accelerate deportations and send migrants to hubs in third-party countries with which migrants have no connection. Two months after arriving in Libya, Yakoub boarded a dinghy bound for Crete with about 50 other people, mostly Sudanese. The Eastern Mediterranean route he took was the second most active route into the EU from January to April, with 12,228 people crossing, the EU's border agency Frontex said. The Central Mediterranean route to Italy and Malta was the most active. Though the Eastern route has seen a year-on-year decline in traffic, the number of Sudanese has surged to among the top three nationalities from January to May, totalling about 1,469 people, according to Frontex. This represents a significant rise from 361 during the same period last year and 237 the year before. Yakoub said he was relieved to be safe finally in Greece, and to start thinking about the future. "If Greece offers me safety and stability, I will stay."
