Girard, Aidenbaum… Resignations and the end of the silence at the town hall?

Bertrand Delanoë, Pierre Aidenbaum, Yves Contassot and Christophe Girard in 2007 -

• Pierre Aidenbaum, deputy at the Seine to the mayor of Paris and former mayor of the 3rd arrondissement from 1995 to 2020, tendered his resignation on Monday.

• An investigation for "sexual assault" was opened entrusted to the brigade of repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP) of the Paris PJ.

• After the resignations of Pierre Aidenbaum and Chirstophe Girard, pundits of Parisian political life since the election of Bertrand Delanoë, will the floor be more free at the mayor of Paris?

Another world.

On February 10, 2014, Bertrand Delanoë, thirteen years in office, bids farewell to the Paris council.

In the assembly, two men pay homage to him.

"History page with strong words from Bertrand Delanoë for this last Council of Paris," each elected member is a part of Paris "", publishes on Twitter, Christophe Girard, who owes him his appointment and his career at the head of the Parisian culture.

“Last sitting of Bertrand Delanoë's term of office.

Much emotion, tear in the eye ”, also indicates Pierre Aidenbaum, mayor of the 3rd district since 1995 and engaged with Bertrand Delanoë since the beginnings.

"The prospect of alternating as mayor of Paris with Bertrand Delanoë opens up radically new horizons", we read in his campaign leaflet in 2001. Bet won, the left wins.

A first in the capital.

Almost twenty years later, in two months apart, Christophe Girard and Pierre Aidenbaum, faithful among the faithful of Anne Hidalgo and appointed deputies at the start of the second term, resigned.

The first, a 64-year-old former director of strategy at LVMH, left his post because of his links with the writer Gabriel Matzneff accused of pedophilia, before being himself accused of sexual abuse, according to a New York Times article.

The second, 78, former head of a company specializing in fashion accessories, dean of the Council of Paris who had inherited a new post of deputy in charge of the Seine, has retired from the municipal executive this Monday after accusations of sexual harassment from his collaborator with whom he had worked for nearly ten years.

Resignations against the backdrop of a sex scandal that agitates the town hall of Paris.

Do they sign the end of an era and the beginning of an institution with a more liberated voice?

"The municipality will remain intractable"

The surprise resignation of the former mayor of the 3rd fell via a brief statement.

“Pierre Aidenbaum handed in his resignation from his post of deputy at the Seine to the mayor of Paris on Monday, September 14.

This decision comes following the revelation of possible acts of sexual harassment against an employee ”.

The Paris city hall announced that it had "immediately" reported these facts to the Paris prosecutor's office, which in the process confirmed the opening of an investigation for "sexual assault" entrusted to the brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP ) of the Parisian PJ.

Pierre Aidenbaum and Christophe Girard in 2007. - STEPHANE DE SAKUTIN / AFP

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, the mayor of Paris made "no additional comment" to the press release and "wishes to let justice do its work".

But she also seems to want at all costs to avoid getting bogged down as in the Girard affair.

"The municipality will remain intractable with all types of acts of moral or sexual harassment, whatever the quality of their author", underlined the town hall of Paris after the resignation of Pierre Aidenbaum, who affirmed him "with force" via his lawyers to AFP "that this relationship was strictly nothing criminal and wishes to be heard as quickly as possible to fully demonstrate his innocence."

Since the release of the voice of women within the framework of the #MeToo movement, other personalities have been the subject of public accusations of sexual violence, like the former environmentalist Denis Baupin, who As a pillar of the Delanoë years, too, first as deputy in charge of transport, then sustainable development and the environment.

Denis Baupin, Christophe Girard, Pierre Aidenbaum… Has the Delanoë generation been caught up by scandals that were hushed up for years in the corridors of the town hall?

“This is not a fair reading.

It can happen in all generations.

These are different facts and at different times, ”we sweep through the ranks of the Parisian socialists, requested by

"Generation impunity"

But for some, the bolts of a system jump with the recent resignations to the town hall.

"Why are these things coming out now when these people have been around for a very long time?"

This coincidence means something.

It means that when we start to unlock an environment, a group of people, the revelations come in cascade, ”explains

, Alice Coffin elected EELV of the 12th arrondissement, feminist figure and activist who published at the end of September

(Grasset) .

She takes for example, the reaction of Pierre Aidenbaum, last July, when she informed, during a meeting, that the green group will ask in a letter, the suspension of Christophe Girard from his deputy position.

A few days before, the dean held an official speech by way of introduction to the re-election of Anne Hidalgo for her second term.

“Pierre Aidenbaum was extremely vehement and said to me 'I find that disgusting'.

He had no interest in a breach opening into a world of secrecy and the unspoken.

Yet if it opens, it helps the victims to speak.

And these men of power are ultimately not untouchable, ”she concludes.

The same goes for Danielle Simonnet, counselor for Paris (LFI).

“This is the impunity generation.

It is a generation of self who thought they had nothing to be ashamed of.

But what sweeps it away, it is not the newly elected and elected, but the victims thanks to a word that is released and an omerta that breaks ”, she affirms to

.

The town hall ensures that the question is taken head-on.

“Since 2016, the City has had a reception and support service for victims which has demonstrated its full effectiveness by allowing an immediate reaction as soon as the incriminated facts are reported,” recalls the Town Hall in its communicated.

Moreover, between the facts implicating Pierre Aidenbaum and the report of the victim to Emmanuel Grégoire, first deputy and Anne Hidalgo, few days have passed.

“If the town hall boasts of this device, I would be more nuanced.

I don't know if it's that operational, ”notes Danielle Simonnet.

And to wonder: “We can congratulate the town hall on this affair and on the rapid decision-making, but there have been a lot of stories in the city and it can take time.

How many women were victims of the same facts before this changed?

".

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• MeToo

• Paris city hall

• Investigation

• Sexual assault

• Anne Hidalgo

• Bertrand Delanoe

• Paris