AFP and Mediapart had revealed that Audrey *, a former collaborator who had followed him from the Senate to the State Secretariat for Reform and Simplification, had filed a complaint against him, accusing the former elected environmentalist of 54 years 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, in a nightclub on the sidelines of the summer gathering of Europe Ecologie les Greens (EELV).

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

Following this complaint, the prosecution quickly opened a preliminary investigation.

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

The former member of the government was placed in police custody Monday morning at the Brigade repression of delinquency to persons (BRDP), and in particular confronted with the complainant, according to close sources.

He was presented on Tuesday afternoon to an examining magistrate after the opening of a judicial investigation by the Paris prosecutor's office.

The examining magistrate indicted him, according to a judicial source, "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".

Jean-Vincent Placed was placed under judicial supervision, with a ban on contacting the complainants and a bond of 20,000 euros, according to a source familiar with the matter.

According to this same source, the indictment concerns facts denounced by two complainants, including Audrey*.

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

-Other charges-

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

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

the third in the same nightclub in Lille as Audrey, 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 said.

Asked Tuesday evening, he did not respond, nor did his lawyer, Me Lisa Janaszewicz, who had indicated during the day to AFP that she had "no statement to make".

Me Tewfik Bouzenoune, Audrey's lawyer, felt that this indictment signified the "well-foundedness of the complaint and the approach of (his) client".

The latter "remains determined to ensure that the truth comes to light. It approaches this new phase with serenity and confidence in justice", added this council, stressing that "the indictment will allow to deepen the investigations already carried out (…) in a fairly quick time frame".

This indictment is not the first opportunity for the fallen ex-politician to face justice.

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.

To AFP, in November, at least four women had attested to the "inappropriate behavior" or the "climate of ambiguity" maintained at work by the ex-senator.

*Name has been changed.

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© 2022 AFP