French prosecutors said Wednesday they had requested pop icon Patrick Bruel be charged and placed in pre-trial detention over nine allegations of sexual abuse including rape and sexual assault. The 67-year-old, a major figure in French pop culture with multiple top-selling albums and dozens of film appearances, has denied any wrongdoing. He is the latest top French celebrity to face investigators in the wake of the #MeToo movement, after film legend Gérard Depardieu was handed a suspended 18-month prison sentence last year for sexually assaulting two women on a film set. Bruel, a heartthrob whose face was plastered on teen magazines in the early 1990s, has spent 48 hours in custody after being detained on Monday to answer questions after multiple allegations. Read moreFrench singer Bruel held in police custody on sexual assault allegations The prosecutor's office in the Paris suburb of Nanterre said it thought he should be charged over nine of them. "The public prosecutor has requested the opening of a judicial investigation against him and that he be charged over acts of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment involving nine victims committed between 2010 and 2019," it said. The prosecutor "requested that he be placed in pre-trial detention", it added. It said that the complaints of another 13 people accusing him of rape, attempted rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment from 1992 to 2008 had been added to the file handed over to investigating magistrates, even if they "appeared to be as beyond the statute of limitations at this stage". Investigating magistrates were later on Wednesday to decide whether to charge the singer. 'Never forced a woman' Bruel – who in 1998 was briefly a world poker champion – protested his innocence last month, saying in an Instagram post that he had "never forced a woman". He then said he would be cancelling all concerts until September. His lawyers on Monday said in a statement he would answer all questions and "provide all the elements necessary to demonstrate his innocence". His accusers include Daniela Elstner, the current director of Unifrance, a company promoting French cinema abroad. In March, she formally accused Bruel of attempted rape during a film festival in Mexico when she was a 26-year-old intern at Unifrance in 1997.