Paris (AFP)

The former deputy mayor of Paris Christophe Girard, already criticized for his links with the writer Gabriel Matzneff, is in turn targeted by an investigation for rape and announced to AFP on Tuesday his temporary withdrawal from the Paris Council .

"For the sake of serenity and the proper functioning of the majority within the Council of Paris, I proposed to Anne Hidalgo (...) my withdrawal for the time of the preliminary investigation and to better defend myself", announced via his lawyer, elected to the Council of Paris and the Municipal Council of the 18th arrondissement.

Christophe Girard, 64, is accused by a man claiming to have been the victim of an abusive relationship with him when he was a minor in the 90s. He disputes any sexual relationship with him.

Paris prosecutor Rémy Heitz announced earlier Tuesday the opening of an "investigation to examine suspicions of rape by person in authority".

But the prosecutor also specifies that the investigations will have to determine, in addition to the accuracy of the charges, if "the prescription of the public action is acquired" in view of the antiquity of the facts.

In an article published on Sunday by the New York Times, Christophe Girard's accuser, Aniss Hmaïd, told the American daily that he had met Mr. Girard in Tunisia in the summer of 1989, when he was 15, and then had been trained in an abusive relationship of almost ten years which left him "lasting psychological wounds".

According to Mr. Hmaïd, 46, Mr. Girard sexually assaulted him for the first time at 16 while traveling in the United States and forced him to have sex about 20 times over the following years.

In exchange, Mr. Hmaïd assures that Mr. Girard sometimes employed him as a servant in his summer residence in the south of France and "obtained temporary jobs for him within the Yves Saint Laurent house" of which he was the one of the main leaders before entering politics.

Four members of his entourage confirmed to the American daily "that he had revealed to them the abuses of Mr. Girard almost twenty years ago".

- Hidalgo "satisfied" -

The former right-hand man of the mayor Anne Hidalgo, pillar for 20 years of the municipality, had denounced as of Sunday allegations "serious" and "without foundation", announcing a complaint in slanderous denunciation.

"The person who implicates Christophe Girard has not lodged a complaint, even today, and she preferred to contact journalists", reacted Tuesday to AFP his lawyer Me Delphine Meillet. "One can imagine that he did not want to be confronted with the judicial institution, which judges with impartiality and wisdom, and he privileged media justice".

For Me Meillet, "the prosecution feels obliged to open an investigation with regard to media pressure (...)" But legally it does not take a single second ", she believes, especially since Mr. Hmaïd says to have been "consenting", while saying to have been caught in a "gear".

At the Paris City Hall, the opening of this investigation led the last supporters of Christophe Girard within the majority to change tone.

The Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, after having supported her deputy for months, said in a tweet that she was "satisfied" with the opening of the investigation while recalling her "unwavering support to all victims of rape".

Accused by his detractors of having supported Gabriel Matzneff, Christophe Girard had resigned from his functions as deputy on July 24, the day after a demonstration of environmentalists and feminists under the windows of the Town Hall.

"In July, elected environmentalists were targeted for asking for Girard's resignation. Since then, the files have piled up and justice is seized of the case. Our majority must be exemplary: Girard can no longer be part of it ", estimated in a tweet David Belliard (EELV), deputy mayor in Paris.

bl-cg-rfo-dar / tib / rhl

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