“I make this platform to affirm that I have never exercised violence or physical or psychological constraint to obtain a report”.
The rebellious deputy and brand new chairman of the National Assembly's finance committee, Éric Coquerel, responded in a column published this Saturday in the Sunday newspaper, to the rumor accusing him of "inappropriate behavior with women".
In a long text, he returns to the origins of this rumor which would have developed, according to him, "for several years" on social networks, but which has taken on an unprecedented scale since it was relayed Thursday by the journalist and feminist activist Rokhaya Diallo.
“I have several sources within LFI… I have heard several times from women talking about the behavior he would have had with women.
These are things that have come up repeatedly for several years, ”said the activist, at the microphone of RTL, also based on an article in the women's magazine Causette, from December 2018.
In line with my feminist convictions, I say of E.
Coquerel what I would say of any person: it seems to me incoherent that a party promoting values of equality should choose for this commission a person who is the subject of such accusations.
pic.twitter.com/HmUq3DnLBY
— Rokhaya Diallo (@RokhayaDiallo) June 30, 2022
In his column Éric Coquerel defends himself by revealing in particular that the anonymous person at the origin of the testimony targeting him in this article - "the centerpiece of his accusations", according to him - had affirmed this Saturday in Mediapart that he did not acted “not from an assault (…) that it was not serious enough to be brought before a listening cell”.
He also recalls that "no public testimony" nor "no result of serious journalistic investigation" have emerged in more than five years, even denouncing "an attempt to counterbalance the accusations concerning Damien Abad", the Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and People with Disabilities, targeted by several testimonies accusing him of sexual violence.
Éric Coquerel, re-elected in the first round in his stronghold of Seine-Saint-Denis during the legislative elections, also takes advantage of his platform to reaffirm his support for the #MeToo movement which “like any just cause, can be instrumentalised”, according to him.
On Thursday, the committee against sexist and sexual violence of La France insoumise, which claims to be autonomous from the party leadership, indicated that it had not received “no report concerning the deputy Éric Coquerel for any fact whatsoever”.
