According to this judicial source, "Jean-Vincent Placé was indicted on counts of sexual assault by a person abusing the authority conferred by his function, sexual assault, and sexual harassment by a person abusing the authority conferred by his function".

From the same source, his judicial control prohibits him from contacting the complainants and imposes a bond on him.

A source familiar with the matter indicated that this indictment concerned facts denounced by two complainants, including Audrey *, whose complaint AFP had revealed with Mediapart in November.

The facts concerning a third complainant would be prescribed, according to the same close source.

The former elected official was placed in police custody on Monday at the premises of the Brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP), as part of an investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor's office after Audrey's complaint, who had followed him from the Senate to the Secretary of State for Reform and Simplification.

During his police custody, he was confronted with this ex-collaborator, sources familiar with the matter told AFP.

The prosecution opened a judicial investigation on Tuesday.

Audrey* had filed a complaint in November 2021, accusing Jean-Vincent Placé, 54, of acts of sexual harassment between 2012 and 2016.

Some of the facts she denounced were also akin to sexual assault: the collaborator accused her in particular of having "touched her buttocks", in August 2015 in Lille, on the sidelines of the summer gathering of Europe Ecologie les Verts (EELV ).

The second attack would have occurred in mid-May 2016 in Seoul, during an official trip by Jean-Vincent Placé: in a car, the former secretary of state of François Hollande would have "deliberately touched Audrey's chest" .

The complainant, as well as former collaborators of elected environmentalists, have been heard by investigators in recent months, according to sources familiar with the matter.

In November, three other former collaborators of elected officials told AFP that they had also suffered inappropriate gestures from the former secretary of state: the first, Julie *, "in the back of a taxi in 2011 ";

the second, Margaux *, "in a restaurant in 2015" and at the State Secretariat a year later;

the third, Eléonore*, in the same nightclub in Lille in August 2015.

Contacted at the time of the opening of the investigation, Jean-Vincent Placé had not commented.

"I will, of course, answer any questions that may be asked of me by the investigators," he added.

His lawyer, Me Lisa Janaszewicz, told AFP Tuesday noon that she had "no statement to make", and had not reacted Tuesday evening to the announcement of the indictment.

In March 2021, Jean-Vincent Placé was fined for sexual harassment of a gendarme responsible for his security.

In September 2018, he was sentenced to a three-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 1,000 euros for violence and insults during a party where he admitted having been "extremely insistent" and "moved" with a client.

gd-mk-tll-jpa/pga/dlm

*Name has been changed

© 2022 AFP