The Paris public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into attempted rape after a woman's complaint against the Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad, for events that allegedly took place at a party in 2010. The testimony of this woman, who filed a complaint on Monday, had been published by Mediapart in mid-June under the assumed name of "Laëtitia".
According to the investigation site, it is a
"centrist elected official"
who was, at the time of the facts she denounces, president of a federation of the New Center youth movement, including Damien Abad, then MEP , was the national president.
Read alsoRape charges against Damien Abad: the executive at odds
“The opening of a preliminary investigation is non-information since everyone knows that any complaint registered, even if it is unfounded, time-barred and firmly contested, is systematically followed by the opening of a preliminary investigation,”
said his lawyers .
Benoit Chabert and Jacqueline Laffont.
“Damien Abad therefore takes note of this logical continuation and will be able to quickly demonstrate his innocence,”
they added.
Me Chabert had assured Tuesday on BFMTV:
“the facts which are evoked in a press article are false”
.
He found it
"disturbing"
that this complaint came
"in the days preceding the renewal of the government"
,
"twelve years"
after the facts denounced.
On Monday, the minister again challenged the charges and announced that he was filing a complaint for slanderous denunciation.
Calls for resignation
The investigation for attempted rape was opened on Tuesday and the investigations were entrusted to the brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP), according to the Paris prosecutor's office, questioned by AFP.
“It is a very good signal for the victims.
My client has faith in justice”,
reacted Wednesday to AFP the lawyer for the complainant Me Raphaële Bialkiewicz.
On the evening of the events, according to her story in Mediapart, Damien Abad
"offered her a glass"
at the bottom of which she saw
"something"
: suspicious, she went to spit her sip into the toilet.
Still according to her words, Damien Abad was waiting for her behind the door and everything went
“very quickly”
: the MEP would have
“pushed her into a room opposite”
then tried to force her to perform fellatio.
“I was scared, I was flabbergasted.
I struggled, I hit him in the stomach
,” she says.
“Laëtitia” says she was finally able
to “get rid
of” her alleged attacker and leave the room thanks to the irruption of a guest.
This is the third woman to accuse the minister of sexual violence.
One of them, Margaux (first name changed) filed a complaint twice, but these two complaints were dismissed in 2012, then in 2017, first for
"lack of the complainant",
then
"lack of 'sufficiently serious offence'.
For the other, Chloé (first name changed), who denounced events that allegedly took place during a party in the fall of 2010, a report had been made by the Observatory of sexist and sexual violence, but the public prosecutor's office in Paris had indicated at the end of May not to open an investigation
“as is”
, for lack
of “element allowing the identification of the victim of the facts denounced”.
His testimony had indeed been transmitted to justice in an anonymized form.
Read alsoAdèle Haenel, Alice Coffin … and 188 women demand the immediate resignation of Minister Damien Abad, accused of rape
The opening of this investigation raises the question of the maintenance of Damien Abad in the new government, the composition of which should be known at the beginning of July.
Damien Abad, ex-president of the LR group in the Assembly, had been appointed minister by Élisabeth Borne and comfortably re-elected on June 19 for a third term as deputy for Ain.
But lately, calls for the minister's resignation have multiplied in the ranks of the opposition and feminist associations.
On June 20, 200 women, elected officials, journalists, feminists, artists, made a request to this effect in a column published by
Le Monde.
