The president of the small pro-Frexit UPR party and 2017 presidential candidate François Asselineau was taken into custody on Wednesday February 3 for sexual assault.

A procedure that could disappoint his hopes of running for the Élysée again and threaten his role at the head of a movement where he was very contested.

Aged 63, he was taken into custody on charges of moral harassment, sexual harassment and sexual assault, AFP learned from the Paris prosecutor's office, confirming information from Le Point.

"The measure is still in progress," this source told AFP. 

François Asselineau is kept in police custody as part of an investigation opened for these same reasons on May 15, 2020 by the Paris prosecutor's office and entrusted to the Personal Crime Repression Brigade (BRDP) of the Paris judicial police.

Two complaints had been filed by two alleged victims and former employees of the UPR, one in Allier, the other in Paris.

A former executive had also made a report to the public prosecutor.

These accusations revealed by

Le Figaro

and

Liberation

were then qualified as "calumnies" by François Asselineau.

The entourage of the head of the UPR (Republican Popular Union) again denied "firmly" Wednesday evening these accusations which, "for the most part, allege facts which allegedly took place even before their hiring".

"Serious psychological suffering"

François Asselineau is "heard within the framework of the legal procedure initiated by two former employees of the movement, concomitantly with an attempt to take control of the UPR by a handful of members", further notes his entourage.

Several dozen executives of the movement had called for his resignation in the spring, evoking "the existence of special and more than insistent relations on the part" of François Asselineau with regard to employees of the UPR, "source of serious psychological suffering ".

Having failed to get him to leave, they then demanded that the president of the UPR be "withdrawn" from his duties during the legal proceedings.

François Asselineau had nevertheless convened at the beginning of July a virtual congress during which he was reelected hands down at the head of the sovereignist party.

The founder of the UPR in 2007 faced two opponents for the first time, including the leader of opponents, Philippe Conte, who demanded his departure because of these accusations of sexual assault, and who had collected 17.3% voices.

A third list obtained 5%.

Philippe Conte also considered that François Asselineau's strategy for the presidential election was "doomed to failure" because he could not bring together the 500 sponsorships to be a candidate, whether he was "innocent or guilty".

He further considered the party "too vertical" and campaigned for a referendum on a possible Frexit.

Philippe Conte and "80% of the executives" of the UPR, according to the dissidents, left from the UPR to create the small Generation Frexit movement.

Supporter of France's exit from the European Union, the euro and NATO, François Asselineau declared during a televised debate on France 2 in April 2019 that he "fully expected to be a candidate for the next presidential election ".

After failing to run for the 2012 presidential election, he was able to collect enough sponsorships to be a candidate in 2017 and obtained 0.92% of the vote.

With AFP

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