After the defeat in the legislative elections, the confrontation with justice.
Former MP and former LREM spokesperson Laetitia Avia is to be tried on May 9, 2023 by the Paris Criminal Court for moral harassment of parliamentary assistants, the prosecution said on Monday, confirming information from Mediapart.
An investigation was opened on July 9, 2020 after several complaints from former collaborators of the former elected.
After two years of an investigation by the Brigade for the repression of delinquency to people (BRDP), Laetitia Avia recently received a summons to appear in court.
A source close to the case told AFP that the investigation had identified six victims.
The lawyer for three plaintiffs did not wish to speak.
The advice of Laetitia Avia had not responded to AFP Monday evening.
Five former parliamentary assistants had accused the MP for Paris of subjecting her collaborators to humiliation, harassment and abuse of power, in an article by Mediapart in May 2020. They also denounced her mockery of the physique or the dress of activists or a chosen one.
These testimonies also evoked remarks deemed sexist, racist or homophobic that Laetitia Avia held in exchanges with her team.
In 2018, for example, she wrote after the vote on an LGBT amendment: "we voted for the PD amendment", according to a screenshot reproduced by Mediapart.
The former MP had denounced "false accusations" and "manipulation" and filed a defamation complaint against the journalist who wrote the article.
“Snippets of private messages have been truncated, diverted and decontextualized”
“Some (of the employees) left, none ever complained of harassment.
Almost all of them asked me after their departure, to ask me for advice, recommendations or simply to give me their news – far from the false picture depicted, ”she said on Twitter after the publication of the testimonies.
"Snippets of private messages have been truncated, diverted and decontextualized," she said.
The presidencies of the Assembly and of the LREM group had been notified of the case.
The anti-harassment cell of the Palais-Bourbon, launched in February 2020, had also been seized, as well as the ethics officer.
Lawyer and activist from the first hour of LREM, Laetitia Avia was beaten in the last legislative elections in the 8th district of Paris by Éva Sas (Nupes).
🗞 " I am 36 years old, I was a deputy of the Nation, I had the chance to carry a law in my name (the law on cyberbullying) which is now reaching the level of all of Europe!
I had the chance to change things, and that will not be taken away from me.”⤵️ https://t.co/xu8CYugU7k
— Laetitia Avia (@LaetitiaAvia) June 20, 2022
During her mandate, she was at the origin of the law against hate content on the Internet adopted in May 2020, but censored the following month largely by the Constitutional Council for infringement of freedom of expression.