For a while, Georges Lopez was the popular embodiment of everything that was once good about France's teaching profession. The quiet authority he exercised with his pupils, as he guided them gently through the difficult lessons of childhood, evoked potent nostalgia for an old-fashioned approach to teaching. As the star of Etre et Avoir, France's most successful documentary, he became a national hero, lauded for his modest reserve and unmaterialistic dedication to a badly paid profession.
But this idolisation of Lopez ended abruptly when he announced he was to sue the film's producers for a share in the €2 million (£1.4m) profits. It seemed like a classic story of a newly created film star being corrupted by the pernicious effect of celebrity.
Speaking for the first time since losing his claim for €250,000 compensation last week, Lopez said he was not motivated by a desire for money, but was simply determined to win recognition of his rights. He said he and his young pupils had been exploited by the film's producers and had been left permanently traumatised.
Millions of people around the world were charmed by the pure vision of life in a one-class village school evoked by Etre et Avoir, which followed Lopez and his 11 pupils, aged between three-and-a-half and 12, over the course of a school year.
Given its tiny budget and extremely obscure subject matter, no one could have predicted the extraordinary success of the documentary, which went on to win one of France's most prestigious film prizes and attracted praise from reviewers internationally, from America to Japan.
But the atmosphere of calm tranquillity inside the village classroom, so beautifully captured by director Nicolas Philibert, began to sour as soon as the film was released, and has since disintegrated into an expensive and spiteful tangle of law-suits.
The families of nine of the pupils feel so strongly about their mistreatment that they have launched legal proceedings against the film's producers. Lopez learnt last week that he had lost his own claim, but plans to appeal.
'We were misled. The production company told me and the children's families that they were making a small documentary about the phenomenon of the one-teacher village school and that the film would be used primarily for educational purposes.
'They said it would have a restricted screening and never discussed marketing the film to make it such a commercial venture.'
He said the film's huge national and international distribution had had a very negative effect on the pupils. 'We had no idea that it would be in cinemas all over the country, released on DVD or distributed abroad. One child, who had been very stable and happy until the film's release, was so distressed by his unexpected fame, that he started wetting the bed, and became afraid of the dark.
'Other children have been teased at their new secondary schools because of their involvement. All have been subjected to a great deal of stress as a direct consequence of the film,' he said.
Lopez is relaxed about his fall from grace in the minds of the public. 'The media like to burn tomorrow what they adore today. Worse still, it's not socially acceptable for school teachers to seek money. I'm meant to live a quiet life in the countryside, eking out a reclusive retirement on my meagre pension. It's a cliche, but that's how people think,' he said. 'I think a lot of people haven't understood what's motivated my legal case. I'm not doing this for the money, I'm simply trying to make the film company recognise my rights.'
Supported by fellow teachers, friends and the families of most of his former pupils, Lopez went to court last week to argue that he deserved payment for the use of his voice and his image in the film. His lawyers said he should be credited as 'co-author', in recognition of his enormous contribution to the documentary, and that he should also be remunerated as an 'actor'. Lopez claimed that his teaching methods recorded in the film were his own intellectual property, and so he deserved to be compensated for their dissemination. On Monday, a Paris tribunal ruled against him on each count.
Roland Rappaport, lawyer for the director, argued that the film was much more than simply a homage to Lopez's professional skills. 'Clearly a film just about the teaching methods of a village teacher in rural France wouldn't have had the extraordinary international success Etre et Avoir has had,' Rappaport said. 'The film worked because of its portrayal of an entire community. ' While no one disputed Lopez's immense personal appeal, he was nevertheless not the creator of the film, Rappaport added. 'The Mona Lisa did not paint the Mona Lisa.'
The court also ruled that Lopez's presence at the Cannes film festival and his repeated public expressions of satisfaction at its success, represented tacit acceptance of the use of his image.
The case rapidly became a discussion of what constitutes a documentary, focusing on the central question of whether the subjects of documentary films can ever receive payment for their participation. The film-makers' lawyers took the broader argument that 'reality should never be paid for' and that to compensate Lopez would create a damaging precedent, and would also lead to the 'death of the documentary - economically and spiritually'.
'By paying the subjects of the film, you change the relationship entirely. The director then gets the right to tell them what to do, to advise them on what to say, to film things over and over again. You leave the sphere of documentary behind and it becomes reality television, or even drama,' Rappaport said.
He added that documentary budgets usually didn't stretch to paying subjects but agreed that Etre et Avoir was something of an exception because of the huge profits it made. This was why €15,000 had been donated to the school and Lopez was offered a one-off payment of €37,500 for his role in promoting the film, but he refused to accept the money, preferring to pursue his legal action.
He is also supporting the separate actions by nine of his 11 former pupils to win €20,000 each in compensation.