The complaint was sent to the Paris public prosecutor's office last month, but the facts date back to 2018. Former President of the Republic Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is the subject of a complaint for sexual assault, according to information from Le Monde and Süddeutsche Zeitung, Ann-Kathrin Stracke, a journalist for the German public broadcaster WDR, ensuring that the former head of state put his hand on his buttocks after an interview in Paris on December 18, 2018.
After questioning him in his Paris office for the centenary of the birth of former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who died three years earlier, Ann-Kathrin Stracke is said to have asked Valéry Giscard d'Estaing to pose with her, his cameraman and his sound taker for a photograph. The former president then allegedly put his hand on her buttocks twice.
Giscard d'Estaing has "no memory of this meeting"
"Very surprised and disapproving of these attacks which made me extremely uncomfortable, I tried to push the hand of Mr. Giscard d'Estaing, but did not succeed," says Ann-Kathrin Stracke in the complaint consulted by Le Monde. The German journalist said that the former French president would have reoffended again when he showed the journalist photographs hanging on the wall of his office.
Informed of this incident, the WDR chain asked a law firm to prepare a report on this case before sending a letter to Valéry Giscard d'Estaing in May 2019. "We cannot tolerate our employees being confronted to such situations, "writes the channel. Ann-Kathrin Stracke explains to the daily newspaper "not having thought of filing a complaint" at first, but the MeToo movement would have made her change her mind over the past months.
According to his chief of staff, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing has "no memory of his meeting" with Ann-Kathrin Stracke. "If what is alleged against him was true, he would of course be sorry, but he does not remember anything," he said.