Former French President Valerie Giscard d'Estaing, 94, is facing an investigation in Paris on a suspected sexual assault, after a German journalist accused him of touching her buttocks during a dialogue with him at the end of 2018.
The journalist on the German state television "WDR" Anne Katherine Strucke (37 years old) filed a complaint last March 10 against the former president, accusing him of putting his hand on her buttocks three times during a dialogue with him in his office in Paris.
The Paris public prosecutor said on Monday that he had opened an investigation for "sexual assault", while Distin's lawyer declined to comment.
For its part, Strucke said that she is happy that the Public Prosecution accepted the criminal complaint and its decision to open an investigation, adding, "I am at the disposal of the French judiciary in the framework of this investigation."
"I decided to tell my story because people should know that a former French president sexually harassed a journalist, which I am after a dialogue," she said, confirming the information released a day ago in the French newspapers Le Monde and German Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Schmidt Centennial
The incident took place on December 18, 2018 during a dialogue recording on the occasion of the centenary of Helmut Schmidt, a former German chancellor of whom Destan was close to during his presidential term (1974-1981).
The journalist explained what happened and said that during the memorial photo, he placed his hand on her waist, then deliberately slipped his hand to her buttock, and he repeated the matter twice, adding that she hired her cameraman to end the matter.
After a year of the incident, the journalist decided to file a case and announced the matter to public opinion, and says that what encouraged her to do so was the emergence of the "Me too" movement, which calls on women to expose the sexual harassment they are subjected to.