French actress Emmanuelle Beart has revealed she was a victim of incest as a child before being ‘saved’ by her grandmother. 

Beart, 60, made the comments in a documentary screened at a news conference today, without identifying her abuser.

Speaking for the actor who was not present, co-director Anastasia Mikova said that Beart would not name her abuser because that is not ‘the approach of the film’. The attacker was not her father, Guy Beart, Mikova added.

The incest started when Beart was 10 and continued until she was 14, she said. 

In a video message to the conference, Beart said that she had initially not wanted to talk about herself, only about other incest victims.

Beart, 60, made the comments in a documentary screened at a news conference today, without identifying her abuser

In a video message to the conference, Beart said that she had initially not wanted to talk about herself, only about other incest victims

‘But their honesty and their courage made me want to speak out, too,’ she said.

In the documentary, her voice is heard off-screen, addressing her abuser. She says: ‘Since my father, my mother and my friends didn’t notice anything, you could do this again, and you did, over four years.’ 

Beart said she was ‘saved’ by her grandmother.

The documentary, called Such a resounding silence, includes the stories of four incest victims, as well as Beart’s own contribution.

The actress, who has starred in dozens of films and TV productions over the past 50 years, is the co-director of the documentary, which will be broadcast to viewers by the M6 channel on September 24.

Beart has been famous in France for decades thanks to performances in Manon of the Spring, A Heart in Winter and Nelly and Mr Arnaud, and reached global audiences with roles in Mission Impossible and 8 Women. 

Some 160,000 children become victims of sexual assault every year in France, and 5.5 million French adults suffered sexual abuse during their childhood, according to Ciivise, a government created commission for the protection of sexual abuse victims.