Testimonies accusing Eric Zemmour of sexual violence now have faces. On the occasion of International Women’s Day, Tuesday March 8, theThe Mediapart information site (subscribers only) aired a 35-minute video investigation where eight women challenge far-right presidential candidate.
In this video, they show “problematic behavior” and “sexual assault”, for alleged facts ranging from 1999 to 2019. Two of them had never spoken before and are testifying publicly. None filed a complaint against Eric Zemmour. Franceinfo returns to these accusations, which relate to a period when the candidate was a journalist at the Figaro or for the iTélé and CNews channels.
Two new public accusations
Claire, an engineer, was just 18 years old in 2002, when she denounced to Mediapart. She is then on an observation internship at the Figaro. One day, Eric Zemmour calls him into his office to help him solve a computer problem. According to her, he starts stroking her back repeatedly. “What are you doing ?” she asks, surprised. She reports this response from the journalist: “You’re an intern, aren’t you? Interns, what do you think they’re for?”
Pascale Sauvage, political journalist at Figaro at the time and Claire’s internship supervisor, told Mediapart that he had confronted Eric Zemmour with his actions. According to her, he would have persisted: “Now, if we can no longer flirt with interns… Because interns are made for giving blowjobs and coffees.” Pascale Sauvage explains that she did not alert the hierarchy, thinking that she would not have “not taken very seriously”.
Second unpublished testimony: that of Séverine, now 45 years old. Former intern at Figaro, she assures that Eric Zemmour kissed her by force in 1999. As she presents him with her dissertation on the written press, for which she had contacted him two years earlier, he offers her a drink. But in the cafe, the tone changes. “Without any transition, he enters into proposals for sexual relations.” She refuses, but “he approaches his face, puts his hand on [sa] thigh”. “He is able to help me for my career”, she relates.
Back at the editorial office, in the elevator, Séverine says that Eric Zemmour “takes with his hands, [la] stuck against the wall and [l]forceful kiss on the mouth. At the time, she felt “dirty, destitute”. She wants to alert the management and the police, but her relatives dissuade her. “They made me think about the fact that (…) he was a public figure, (…) that I could burn myself in the job that I wanted to do … And I think that unfortunately, they were right. Today, Séverine is categorical: “It’s a sexual assault.”
Six testimonials already relayed in 2021
Six of the eight women in this video survey had already testified for the first time in 2021, in two Mediapart surveys, published on April 29 and May 30 (paid items).
This is the case of Gaëlle Lenfant, librarian and opposition municipal councilor in Aix-en-Provence (Bouches-du-Rhône), who initially spoke on social networks. Facing the camera, she recalls that at the end of a workshop at the Socialist Party’s summer university in La Rochelle in 2004, Eric Zemmour attacked her: he “grabs me by the neck. Says to me: ‘This dress suits you very well, you know?’ And kiss me. By force.” On the day of publication of the first Mediapart article, Gaëlle Lenfant, victim of death threats, filed a complaint.
The same goes for Belgian journalist Aurore Van Opstal, who published on 27 April 2021 a tweet, since deleted, like his Twitter account, following a wave of cyber harassment. Aurore Van Opstal confirmed the scene in Mediapart publications from 2021 and 2022. According to her testimony, theon March 18, 2019, during a meeting with Eric Zemmour, the latter him has “caressed the knee with his hand”, going up “to the crotch”.
A journalist, a make-up artist, a receptionist or even a press officer: four other women had also spoken, on condition of anonymity, to Mediapart in 2021. The journalist had also testified in November 2021 in the program “Complément d ‘investigation’, on France 2.
In the video survey published yesterday, they all speak again, still anonymously. They evoke the “fear of reprisals” and that of duty “to face accusations of slander (…), attacks by his fans…”
Eric Zemmour refuses to answer
Eric Zemmour refused to answer questions from Mediapart. After his political rally on Tuesday March 8, in Paris, the day of the publication, the candidate did not wish to appear before the press. “Mediapart wants to make a hit on Women’s Day by recycling testimonials already released last year. Shabby five weeks from the first round”reacted his entourage to AFP.
During this meeting, Eric Zemmour nevertheless spoke on the theme of gender equality: “I want women’s freedom. And I no longer want French women to be afraid. (…) I no longer want our women, our sisters and our daughters to be afraid for their safety.”
I want women’s freedom. And I don’t want French women to be afraid anymore. I no longer want them to be afraid of the collapse of their standard of living. I no longer want our wives, sisters and daughters to fear for their safety.#LesFrancaisesWithZemmour pic.twitter.com/EmIzk14nOK
— Eric Zemmour (@ZemmourEric) March 8, 2022
Already the December 9, 2021, interviewed by France 2, he had declared that he did not want to answer these accusations: “It’s about my private life. (…) These women accuse me, without any proof, it’s word against word.”