French actor Olivier Martinez has complained to The Sun and the Daily Mail claiming breach of privacy, after they published pictures of him having a meal with former lover Kylie Minogue and her parents in a Paris restaurant.
Martinez, who split up with the Australian pop star in February last year, has engaged British media law firm Schillings to complain to News Group Newspapers and Associated Newspapers.
The actor’s French lawyer, Emmanuel Asmar, claimed the paparazzi pictures, published last month, were taken without prior consent and breached French privacy law.
He also argued that the two British tabloids at the centre of the complaint used the publication of the photos as an opportunity to publish ‘false allegations’about the actor’s links with Minogue.
Press Gazette understands that Schillings has written to the two titles, and issued a warning to other newspapers and magazines, asking that the claims are not repeated and that the pictures be taken down from their websites.
‘Our goal is to stop the press talking about the private life,’Asmar said. ‘We’re not looking for money or anything.”
In May, Martinez won privacy rulings against Mirror Group and Associated Newspapers over a different set of pictures of the pair, published on the Sunday Mirror and This Is London websites.
Both publishers were ordered to pay 4,500 euros (£3,500) to the actor, after a Paris court ruled that the case could be heard in France because the websites were visible globally.
But Asmar said he had not ruled out suing in the British courts because privacy rulings in the French courts had not acted as a suitable deterrent for the British press.
‘You may obtain good decisions [from the rulings] but they keep taking pictures,’he said.
‘The amounts are rather small, so when you put it in perspective, [the papers] will make more money not respecting the law than respecting it.
‘If we can avoid these legal actions that would be great, but frankly I doubt it. Olivier is a bit fed up. It’s a bit depressing for him.”
Associated Newspapers and News Group Newspapers had not returned calls by the time of publication.
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