Georges Tron was sentenced Wednesday evening to five years in prison, including three years, for rape and sexual assault in a meeting on a former collaborator.

The mayor of Draveil had been acquitted at first instance.

But the consistency of the complainant, and the evolution of the gaze on the issue of consent, explain this reversal in appeal.

Wednesday evening, Georges Tron remained impassive to the statement of the verdict of the Paris Assize Court.

Straight as an i in his dark suit, the city councilor of Draveil gave his watch to his lawyer after being sentenced on appeal to five years in prison, so three years, for rape and sexual assault in a meeting on an employee of his town hall of Essonne.

Escorted by the gendarmes who spared him the additional humiliation of handcuffing in public, the man left the room without any other support than that of his lawyers and a young draveillois, who came to greet him. 

A new look at consent

In first instance, however, he and his co-accused Brigitte Gruel had been acquitted.

What happened for such a reversal to occur after ten years of proceedings marked by the resignation of Georges Tron from the Fillon government in 2011, then a dismissal order quashed before a favorable verdict and, so, this condemnation?

Conviction which also accompanies a placement in detention, when the Advocate General had requested instead an electronic bracelet, considering that the prison was not necessary.

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The file is complex.

Georges Tron and his former assistant, Brigitte Gruel, have always proclaimed their innocence, to the point of denying having had sexual relations, even with consent, with the complainants.

At first instance, the Bobigny court considered that the defendants had lied but that proof of coercion had not been provided.

Two years later, the judges and jury were of course different.

But it is also a new look at the question of consent that arose in the case.

The defendants were convicted of the rapes and sexual assaults denounced by one of the two plaintiffs, Virginie Ettel. 

The consistency of Virginie Ettel

This ex-employee of the town hall of Draveil has always been constant in her statements.

Since filing a complaint in May 2011, until her remarks before the Assize Court, including her hearings and the confrontation with the accused, Virginie Ettel has always denounced a first scene of plantar reflexology during her interview with hiring that has drifted into sexual acts.

Then, two scenes of rape in a meeting.

His suicide attempts, his first request for resignation refused, are all elements that attest to the truth of the facts. 

The Paris Assize Court retained surprise and moral constraint to characterize the rape and sexual assault on Virginie Ettel.

For the Advocate General, Jean-Christophe Muller, it is a logical decision, whereas he had spoken to him of the influence of a boss on his employees during his indictment.

"We must not play with words either," he explains to Europe 1. "'Constraint', 'domination', 'hold', we are in the same idea. In a situation where there is a completely asymmetric, unbalanced relationship. And what characterizes constraint or control is abuse. Not the mere fact of being in a dominant position but of abusing it, with a voluntary perspective of reducing the position to nothing. consent."

Eleven hours of deliberation

On the other hand, Georges Tron was acquitted for the facts denounced by Eva Loubrieu, the second complainant in this case.

The latter had recognized a relationship agreed at the start with the city councilor and varied too much in her statements to be certain of the Assize Court.

Proof that the decision was difficult to make, the jury deliberated for eleven hours on Wednesday.

This verdict is perhaps now the end point of this procedure initiated more than ten years ago.

The defendants have five days to appeal to the Supreme Court, but in all cases Georges Tron will remain in prison.