«
Humiliated", "denigrated", "drowned" under the messages: former parliamentary assistants of Laetitia Avia evoked Tuesday, May 9 at the court of Paris their collaboration with her, at the trial for "moral harassment" of the former deputy LREM. "I strongly contest all of these allegations," said early afternoon the former deputy of Paris, 37, who is to be questioned Wednesday.
An early activist of the presidential party, she is suspected of moral harassment of seven of her former collaborators between 2017 and 2020. Four testified on the first day of the trial.
'Everyday violence'
One of them was hired as "chief of staff" after his victory in July 2017. At the bar, Pascal* affirmed that a "daily violence" was quickly imposed due to the "remarks", "behavior" and "decisions of Ms. Avia". "There were moments of absurdity, disorganization, extremely direct and dry comments," he described, believing that he had become, little by little, the "collaborator-trash" to whom we "gave all the tasks that were not assigned to anyone".
The young man of Chinese origin explained that he was also in charge of taking care of the "website" and installing a "cloud server" while he came from "a business school" and was rather specialized in "diplomacy". In a voice recording unveiled by Mediapart, which had revealed these testimonies in May 2020, Laetitia Avia regretted that, "despite his origins", Pascal is not "the best on computer subjects". In team loops on the Telegram app, she referred to him as "the Chinese," called him "Patoche" in public, according to the prosecution.
'Climate of fear, of control'
On these discussion groups, "every day we went to bed with the fear of missing a message, which could fall around 23 p.m., 00:30 a.m., with remarks "TTU", "very very urgent"", also explains Pascal. "We were really drowning in this thing." After seven months, "I finished this contract in a climate of fear, control, (...) From burnout, I was lost," he said. Questioned by a court judge, he confirmed that he joked about introducing himself as "the Chinese". But "it is to confuse moments that can be jokes, which are not necessarily very subtle (...), with nasty and racist remarks," he argued.
At the time of Pascal's departure, two other colleagues explained that the MP had created with them another Telegram loop, called "Biiiiitch Talking", in order to "mock" him. Among these two colleagues was Simon*. "She spoke badly to me," also noted the one who was hired as a "lawyer" at the beginning of his mandate, speaking of "gratuitous and nasty humiliations, hurtful, on (his) sexual orientation". In a conversation, he illustrated, she wrote that MPs had just voted on the "PD amendment"; On a road trip, she said he chose "gay music."
A 'political coup'
Generally speaking, in the team discussion, she "asked who would be available to call her banker or pick up a drug, I never answered," Simon said. On the other hand, he confirmed that he had corrected the copies of his Sciences Po students in his place. Before these testimonies, six witnesses called by the defense described a woman "joyful, affectionate, human", certainly "ambitious" and "rigorous" but who never showed "aggressiveness" or made "racist, misogynistic, homophobic remarks".
Highlighting the "racist, grossophobic attacks", "death threats" and "insults" that Laetitia Avia received during her five years in office, Renaissance MP Guillaume Gouffier Valente, her friend, spoke at the bar of a "political coup", stressing that the Mediapart article had come out at the time of the presentation to the Assembly of the bill carried by Laetitia Avia against online hatred. "What did the plaintiffs gain from this complaint?" asked a lawyer for the civil parties, Maud Sobel. The member shrugged, "You will ask them."
*First names changed
