Star accuses Christophe Ruggia of abuse when she was making her first film aged 12

The acclaimed French actor Adèle Haenel has alleged she was sexually harassed from the age of 12 by the director who made her first film.

Haenel, 30, who has won a string of awards for her work, including two French Oscars, said she was subjected to “permanent sexual harassment” by Christophe Ruggia from the age of 12 to 15 when she was making and promoting her debut 2002 film, The Devils, in which she played a girl with autism.

She told an investigation by the French website Mediapart that she considered the director’s actions to be child abuse and sexual harassment. She said it included “forced kisses on the neck” and “repeated touching” to the thighs and torso, and that it happened at the director’s apartment and during several international film festivals.

Ruggia has denied the accusations, with his lawyers saying that he “categorically refuted” any misconduct.

Haenel, who has won praise internationally with her recent performance in the French film Portrait of a Lady on Fire, gave a live-streamed interview on the Mediapart site in which she said silence must be broken around the targeting and abuse of children. “Monsters don’t exist,” she said. “This is our society we’re talking about. Our fathers, our friends, our brothers. As long as we don’t see this, we’ll never move forward.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Christophe Ruggia strongly denied the allegations. Photograph: Francois Guillott/AFP via Getty Images

She said she spoke out after watching Leaving Neverland, a documentary about alleged abuse carried out by the US pop star Michael Jackson.

When she discovered that Ruggia was to make another film with teenagers, she decided to go public.

She said: “[Ruggia] put a system in place to isolate me, to have him at his place every weekend … It was a man of nearly 40 who every week got himself into a room with a young girl who was between 12 and 15 and tried to touch her up. There was no ambiguity in the situation … it wasn’t romantic, it was pure pressure. I was stuck to the sofa. I froze in the centre of all this.”

Mediapart spoke to dozens of people, many involved in the making of The Devils, about an incestuous relationship between 12-year-old siblings. Many expressed concern about the director’s approach to Haenel.

Haenel said the experience had traumatised her and that at the time she never wanted to make another film.

The French society of film directors (SRF) said it was expelling Ruggia in light of the accusations.

“We want to express our total support, our admiration and recognition of the actress Adèle Haenel, who had the courage to speak out after so many years of silence,” it said in a statement on Monday.

Ruggia, 54, who is also known for The Kid from Chaaba, is a former co-president of the organisation. He said he had a “professional and affectionate relationship” with Haenel.

The director’s lawyer, Jean-Pierre Versini, said that while the film-maker may have had “an involuntary, adult, director’s hold on her… he categorically denies touching or sexually harassing her” when she was a minor.

Haenel said she was shocked that he denied it, adding: “You have to recognise it, it is more violence denying it. And I am even more shocked by the fact that he says he discovered me, because really he destroyed me.”

• This article was amended on 6 November 2019 to clarify the content of the documentary Leaving Neverland.