Notice of heavy weather on the government of Elisabeth Borne. Damien Abad, the former president of the group Les Républicains in the National Assembly, just appointed Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and People with Disabilities, is accused of rape by two women for alleged facts dating from 2010 and 2011, revealed Mediapart (paid item) Saturday May 21. The Observatory of gender-based and sexual violence in politics confirms to franceinfo that it has sent a “report by email” to La République en Marche and to the Republicans regarding these accusations.
One of the two women accusing the elected sent a letter to the Observatory sexist and sexual violence in politics on May 13, in which she “wishes to testify to the facts of rape concerning Damien Abad, LR deputy for Ain, approached to join the government, and invested by Renaissance in Ain.” The organization subsequently, at the request of this woman, sent her testimony to the management of LREM and LR.
“We sent the report by email to Stanislas Guerini, Christophe Castaner, Bérangère Couillard and Aurélien Pradié.”
The Observatory of gender-based and sexual violence in politicsat franceinfo
A report sent on Monday, May 16, followed by a follow-up “the 19 for LREM and the 20 for LR”, adds the organization. A letter was also sent to the public prosecutor, assures Mediapart.
This woman having testified before theObservatory sexist and sexual violence in politics assures Mediapart to have found Damien Abad in a restaurant and a Parisian bar one evening in 2010, after meeting at the wedding of friends in common a few months earlier.
“He offers champagne, I drank a glass. And there, blackout, until the next morning. It had never happened to me, especially not after a single glass.”
Woman accusing Damien Abad of rapeat Mediapart
She says she woke up the next morning “in a hotel room near the bar” with Damien Abad, “in underwear”, “in a state of shock and deep disgust”and fears to have been “drugged”.
According to information from Mediapart, a woman also filed a complaint for “rape” in 2017 against the deputy. After several months of exchanges by messages with the chosen one, whom she depicts as “very insistent”, she claims to have had a sexual relationship imprinted “disrespect, injunction and insistence”, then having undergone an imposed anal penetration, despite a refusal pronounced in such a way “affirmed” and “Many times”. In Mediapart, she also accuses the new minister of having “claimed a blowjob”. L’investigation into these presumed facts was closed without further action.
Contacted by Mediapart, Damien Abad formally disputes the facts and holds “to affirm with force that the sexual relations that I have been able to have have always rested on the principle of mutual consent“. The Minister assures that he does not have “obviously never drugged anyone” neither “never accompanied by a woman without her consent”. Regarding the complaint against him, he told the investigation site that he was “physically impossible to commit the acts described” because of his disability. During the investigation, the chosen one described a relationship “agreed”ensuring that there had been no “no violence, no aggressiveness, no moral constraint”. Damien Abad conceded possible “requests for [sa] go” during the report, but “at no time of physical or moral constraint”.
According to information from Mediapart, the report sent to the two parties has not received a response at this stage. The president of the LREM group in the National Assembly, Christophe Castaner, affirms to Mediapart that he has “received nothing” and having informed the prosecution following questions from the information site. Stanislas Guerini, the general delegate of La République en Marche, assures him of having read the email from the Observatory of sexist and sexual violence in politics on Saturday morning, after being questioned by Mediapart. On the side of the Republicans, the secretary general of the party, Aurélien Pradié, replies to Mediapart that he has not “consulted the mailbox on which this alert was sent to him”. He nevertheless evokes a confrontation in 2020 with Damien Abad, following testimonies “decinappropriate behavior he would have had with female collaborators”.