A student, who had accused an elected PCF of the Council of Paris of rape, was found dead Tuesday in his university room on the campus of Paris-Nanterre University, we learned from the Nanterre prosecutor's office, confirming information of the
Parisian
.
An investigation to find the causes of death has been opened, said the prosecution.
No link was established Tuesday night between the rape accusations and the death of the student, found hanged in his university room, according to the first elements of the investigation.
Read also: The PCF calls on one of its elected officials in Paris to withdraw after accusations of rape
Contacted by AFP Tuesday evening, Paris-Nanterre University did not respond immediately.
On January 21, Guillaume T., 20 years old, under the pseudo Prunille on Twitter, accused an elected official of rape:
“After more than two years, without knowing how to put the words on what happened to me, realize that I was raped by Maxime Cochard, counselor of Paris and his companion [...] in October 2018 when I was only 18 years old and was particularly vulnerable ”
.
"I consider that they took advantage of my youth, of my naivety, of the fact that due to family problems I did not really have a place to sleep, of their responsibilities within the PCF to have sex. agreed with me, ”
he wrote.
Maxime Cochard quickly reacted in a press release, also posted on Twitter, in which he denounced
"a totally false accusation"
.
The Communist Party had asked him to step aside from his responsibilities within the PCF.
The lawyer of the elected, Fanny Colin, had confirmed that the facts of rape were
"formally contested"
by his client and that a procedure for defamation had been initiated.
A few days after this accusation, thousands of gays testified under the hashtag “metoogay” about the sexual violence they suffered, in the tradition of #Metoo movements.