PARIS —
French President Emmanuel Macron’s newly appointed minister in charge of
solidarity and people with disabilities denied on Sunday allegations of rape
from over a decade ago, revealed by an investigative website.
اضافة اعلان
Damien Abad, a
right-wing heavyweight, was a political coup for the centrist Macron in a
cabinet shuffle announced on Friday to prepare for parliament elections next
month. The next day, the
Mediapart website reported a politics watchdog group
created by members of France’s MeToo movement had informed prosecutors as well
as Macron’s LREM party of rape claims against Abad by two women in 2010 and
2011.
The report said
one of the women informed the police in 2012 but then declined to formally make
a complaint, and her subsequent claim in 2017 was later dismissed by
prosecutors. The Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed on Sunday it was informed
of the two claims by the MeToo watchdog on Friday, and they were being
investigated.
“I contest in
the strongest way these accusations of
sexual violence. I contest having ever
used any form of coercion whatsoever against any woman,” Abad said in a
statement. “For my entire life the sexual relations I have had have always been
with mutual consent,” he added.
In 2012, Abad,
now 42, became the first handicapped person to be elected to the lower-house
National Assembly, and was the leader of his Republican party’s MPs until he
joined Macron’s government.
Prime Minister
Elisabeth Borne, herself appointed by Macron last week, said on Sunday she had
not known of the allegations before Abad’s nomination. “Obviously I was not
aware,” she said during a campaign visit in Calvados,
western France, ahead of
the parliamentary vote, where Macron is hoping to secure a solid majority for
his second five-year term.
“I have no further
information other than the fact that the case was dismissed,” she said, while
promising that “on the subjects of harassment and sexual assault, there can be
no impunity.” “If there is new information, if a new complaint is filed, we will
draw all the consequences,” Borne said.
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