Laetitia Avia is preparing to pass a law on Wednesday in her name to fight “hate speech” online. But in an article published Tuesday, these are racist, sexist and homophobic remarks attributed to the member (La République en Marche, LREM), which are reported by Mediapart.
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A "false table" , denounces the spokeswoman for the party, which has announced its intention to file a complaint for defamation. In this Mediapart article, five former parliamentary assistants to the elected depict a deputy, a lawyer by profession, with connoted expressions and exhausting working methods, sometimes bordering on legality.
Presumed practices contrary to labor law
Remarks against a former collaborator of Asian origin, remarks on female colleagues treated as “whores” and mocked for their physique or their dress, expression “amendment of PD” used after the vote of a text in in favor of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) refugees ... There is "a gap between the values that she defends publicly and what (that she) has noticed by working alongside her , " explains a former collaborator with the media.
Read also: PORTRAIT - Laetitia Avia, a propelled lawyer deputy LREM
Revelation of Macronie at his election to the National Assembly, active in the fight against discrimination, Laetitia Avia also sees his working methods pointed out, with working hours ranging from "7am to 1am ", "even weekends , ” says an employee. Some of his ex-assistants would also have been given missions unrelated to his parliamentary function, such as managing personal meetings or correcting copies of his Sciences Po students. Another would have been the victim of a contrary practice in labor law: she would have been hired in February 2018, a month after starting to work for the MP ... without being paid.
"Shameful manipulation"
In response to these accusations, the elected representative reaffirmed to Mediapart that she "does not tolerate (...) racism, homophobia and sexism", " including in private settings, including as regards considered to be jokes, which in reality only participate in ordinary racism ”. She also defends herself from "brutal methods" vis-à-vis her former assistants, of whom "none has ever complained of harassment," she insisted on Twitter. "It is shameful manipulation, driven by a single objective: to harm me and undermine my political struggle , " said the member.
According to Mediapart, the ex-collaborators would have tried to bring back some of its alleged practices: with the ethics officer of the Assembly "seized at least six times on the case" , of the anti-harassment cell of the Assembly, of Richard Ferrand or Gilles Legendre, patron of LREM deputies. A meeting with the ethics officer and in the presence of Laetitia Avia was offered to the former assistants, who preferred to decline. " What good was it, she would have made us pay behind," says one of them.
Last month, Laetitia Avia had already been accused of having demanded the return to Paris of her collaborator confined in the Gard. The member then assured that she had never "forced" and deemed the controversy "ridiculous" .
