French director on trial for sexual abuse

PARIS, Nov. 4 (UPI) -- The French film director who discovered Johnny Depp's wife, Vanessa Paradis, is accused of sexually abusing four starlets during screen testing.

Director Jean-Claude Brisseau admits he conducted "erotic auditions" between 1996 and 2001 for "Choses Secrètes," but says they were artistically justified and "indispensable" to the work, the Guardian reported Friday.

The four actresses who filed the charges against Brisseau gave sexually explicit testimony in a Paris court Thursday. Two of them claimed the director also tricked them into working for free.

A police report said the fact that Brisseau masturbated in front of the actresses "excludes all artistic or cinematographic motive," the newspaper said. "It is abundantly clear ... that Mr. Brisseau was seeking simply to satisfy his personal pleasure."

Brisseau, 61, who cast a teenage Paradis in the 1989 "Noce Blanche," has won awards at Cannes and been nominated for several others.