Paris (AFP)

The horsewoman Amélie Quéguiner, who has testified publicly to the sexual violence she allegedly suffered from supervisors, finds herself in court for a defamation lawsuit brought by the French Federation and its president Serge Lecomte, who refuse to file a complaint against a victim.

It was in February 2020. Amélie Quéguiner delivered the story of repeated rapes by three supervisors for ten years, in the 80s. She was the first woman in equestrian sports to break the silence.

Since then, she no longer wants to be silent and helps many alleged victims to free their word.

As soon as it speaks, the French Equestrian Federation (FFE) sets up a hotline, a reporting form and launches a campaign, "Do not speak to your horse".

Three months later, Mediapart reveals that, in another affair, President Serge Lecomte had employed a man tried and convicted of pedophile offenses and that he "had been well informed" of this man's situation.

In February 2021, Amélie Quéguiner returns to this case in an interview with L'Obs and indicates "that a person capable of protecting a pedophile and of keeping him in office while knowing that he risks putting him in a situation of recidivism n he has nothing to do at the head of a sports federation, nothing to do anywhere else! ".

Amélie Quéguiner, now director of an equestrian center in the southwest, also speaks of a "culture of indecent and retrograde rape", which reigns in "our environment and among its leaders", and with "which we must get it over with ".

According to the summons to appear that AFP was able to consult, it is among other things these words made by Amélie Quéguiner that earned her having to appear in court in Périgueux on Wednesday.

The day before, the second round of the federal elections will have taken place, which will appoint the president, either Serge Lecomte, running for a fifth term, or his opponent, Anne de Sainte-Marie.

Asked by AFP for several days, the Ministry of Sports has not made known its reaction to this situation.

The defamation complaint arose in the midst of a heavy electoral campaign.

Last week, the ex-skater Sarah Abitbol, ​​who had accused her trainer of rape, freeing up the floor in the world of skating, co-signed a column published in L'Obs asking the FFE to withdraw the complaint .

The same request was made by Anne de Sainte-Marie, and a petition, launched six days ago, showed 19,500 signatories on Monday noon.

The association Colosse aux pieds d'Argile, which fights against sexual violence in sport and which signed an agreement with the FFE in March, regretted in a press release that it "had not been informed" of this complaint.

"We are in no way united with this legal action", it is written on their Facebook page, specifying that it reserves "the right to denounce the convention".

Misunderstanding spreads to the horse riding community.

"Today, the amalgamation that is made is that it is a complaint against a victim. No, it is a complaint against a person who defamed the Federation by laying serious and unfounded accusations against the federal institution and its leaders. It turns out that this person is an alleged victim of sexual violence ", explains to AFP Frédéric Bouix, general delegate of the FFE.

"+ The Federation files a complaint against a victim + - which was the touting title of a candidate for the presidency of the Federation - it necessarily creates emotion. And rightly, it is a serious subject, but the victim status does not allow breaking the laws of the Republic ", he continues.

The complaint could be withdrawn if the "defamatory and false words were withdrawn and denied", specifies the FFE.

© 2021 AFP