Is the Coquerel affair just beginning?

Sophie Tissier, a former figure of "yellow vests", announced on Sunday that she had made a report to LFI's sexual violence monitoring committee.

She revealed on BFM-TV that she had filed a “pre-complaint” and is considering a complaint after having publicly denounced “offensive, harassing” behavior towards her by LFI deputy Eric Coquerel.

Who has just been elected this week chairman of the Finance Committee of the Assembly.

“Outrageous, offensive, harassing” behavior

After a tweet at midday, she described at the start of the evening on BFMTV "inappropriate gestures, wandering hands", during an evening organized by the party in 2014, evoking "a salacious, sticky look", and during the dance evening "a clumsy flirt", an "outrageous, offensive, harassing" behavior on the part of the deputy.

I know because I suffered.

I attest.

#Coquerel stalker with sticky wandering hands and inappropriate assaults in 2014 during the PG summer universities.

I felt a deep unease I didn't know where it would stop.

I had clearly expressed my refusal to him.

He didn't care.

https://t.co/FFsxRZpCNB

— Sophie Tissier Official (@sophietissier23) July 2, 2022


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According to Sophie Tissier, Eric Coquerel also sent him text messages offering to take him to his hotel.

"It was not a physical attack in the sense that there was no physical violence", she judged, "but the harassment was still traumatic".

"I don't want him to go so far as to resign"

"I don't want him to go so far as to resign", but "to recognize the facts, to hear what I have to say and to say 'yes it's true, I had inappropriate behavior,” she added.

Sophie Tissier also said she spoke about it openly in the party, in particular to LFI MEP Leila Chaibi and press officer Juliette Prados.

Eric Coquerel does not rule out filing a complaint for defamation

Asked before on BFMTV, Eric Coquerel had again challenged any inappropriate behavior towards women and started a counter-offensive: “I will look at the file, I will see.

I do not rule out filing a complaint for defamation”, he said, considering about his accuser that “there will be no complaint” and that “it will be pschitt”.

In addition, “the movement now plans to file a complaint against all the people who spread slander (…) on social networks”, added Eric Coquerel: “even a cause just like #MeToo can be instrumentalised”.

He finally rejected any parallel between his situation and that of Minister Damien Abad who is the subject of a judicial inquiry after a complaint of attempted rape – and whom Eric Coquerel believes should leave the government.

Eric Coquerel also defended his innocence in a column in the Journal du Dimanche, ensuring that he had "never exercised violence or physical or psychological coercion to obtain a report, which characterizes the gateway to criminal behavior in the area of ​​gender-based and sexual violence”.

Mélenchon denounces an "infamous slander operation"

The leader of LFI Jean-Luc Mélenchon brought his support to Eric Coquerel on his blog at the end of the day, denouncing an “infamous operation of slander” and saying his “disgust” in the face of “this vile baseness”.

After the votes of LREM deputies for RN candidates for key positions in the National Assembly, he considered that the accusations were "timely relayed without restraint, investigation or verification of any kind" and had "allowed to "to talk about something else"", attacking in particular a journalist from BFMTV.

He considered it "urgent to rid" the fight against gender-based and sexual violence "of people who have made it a means of instrumentalizing their political resentment against LFI".

“A variable geometry indignation on the part of the left”

The leader of the LREM deputies, Aurore Bergé, reacted to Sophie Tissier's initiative by estimating to the RTL-Le Figaro-LCI Grand Jury that it was "in no way internally within the political parties that issues should be settled. such important matters.

It is justice that must be seized if there are complaints.

»

"I think there is a variable geometry indignation on the part of the left" on the issue of sexual violence, mocked the president of the National Rally Jordan Bardella, interviewed by Europe 1, CNews and Les Echos.

Yaël Braun-Pivet, the new LREM president of the National Assembly, judged it "sad" that Eric Coquerel "needed" to publicly defend himself against the allegations against him.

“We absolutely have to be right, everyone, collectively.

The machine must not get carried away by rumours.

I invite each victim to file a complaint, ”she said on France 3.

  • Eric Coquerel

  • La France Insoumise (LFI)

  • National Assembly

  • Violence against women

  • Sexual harassment