Former President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing is the subject of an investigation, opened Monday, to examine the complaint of a German journalist who accuses him of touching his buttocks at the end of 2018, announced the Paris prosecutor's office.
Ann-Kathrin Stracke, 37-year-old journalist on German public television WDR, filed a complaint on March 10 against the current member of the Constitutional Council aged 94, accusing him of having put his hand on his buttocks at three taken up during an interview in his Paris office.
" Sexual harassment "
The investigation was entrusted to the brigade for the suppression of delinquency against the person (BRDP), said the prosecution. Contacted, the lawyer for the former head of state did not wish to comment immediately. "I am pleased to learn that the prosecution has registered my criminal complaint and has decided to open an investigation," said Ann-Kathrin Stracke. "I am, of course, at the disposal of French justice in the context of this investigation," she added.
"I decided to tell my story because I think people should know that a former French president sexually harassed a journalist, in this case me, after an interview," she said on Thursday, confirming the information of this complaint revealed the day before by Le Monde and the German daily newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung .
The facts would have occurred on December 18, 2018 during an interview with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, on the occasion of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Helmut Schmidt, former German chancellor whom he encountered during his tenure at the 'Elysée (1974-1981).
"He put his hand on my left waist"
“After the interview, I asked to be able to take a photo with Valéry Giscard d'Estaing and my colleagues. This photo was taken by his assistant who was in the room. I was standing to the left of VGE and, during the photo, he put his hand on my left waist, which then slid further towards my buttocks and remained there, ”continues the complainant.
A situation which would have been repeated on two other occasions just after: during a new photo and when the former president showed him old images of him alongside other heads of state or his family. "I tried to push it away again, but I did not succeed," she said.
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To free herself from this situation which she describes as "very degrading", she claims to have obtained the help of her cameraman who, overturning a lampshade and placing a chair between her and the former president, sought to create a diversion .
