“In the world of these people, we help ourselves. And that day, he helped ourselves.” Mediapart (article subscribers) published, Tuesday, March 8, testimonies of women who accuse Eric Zemmour of “inappropriate behavior and sexual assault”. Some speak in front of the camera, for the first time, in a 36-minute video investigation, an extract of which was shared on Twitter.
For several months, Mediapart has investigated and collected the testimony of eight women who accuse Éric Zemmour of inappropriate behavior and sexual assault for alleged facts ranging from 1999 to 2019. Some speak in front of the camera for the first time. pic.twitter.com/yThFx7C39o
— Mediapart (@Mediapart) March 8, 2022
Claire recounts a brief internship, when she was 18, at Figaro in 2002. Called to help the columnist with a computer problem, “I feel his hand on my back going back and forth from bottom to top”, says the one who is now an engineer. Pascale Sauvage, a former colleague of Eric Zemmour at Figaroreports having spoken to the former journalist. “I told him, you don’t touch the intern”. “He tells me : ‘If now we can no longer flirt with the trainees. The trainees, it’s still made for making pipes and coffee’. He told me that, I’m sure”she says.
Another former trainee, Séverine, accused her in 1999 of “very raw proposals for sexual relations” and to have it “blocked against the wall of the elevator and forcefully kissed on the mouth”. She had already testified anonymously for the first time, in November, in “Complement of the investigation”, on France 2.
Among the other testimonies, Gaëlle Lenfant, former responsible for women’s rights of the Socialist Party (PS) also accuses the former editorialist of having “kissed by force” during a PS summer school in La Rochelle in the early 2000s. She spoke on April 24, 2021 on Facebook on this subject. “I found myself so flabbergasted that I could do nothing but push him away and run away”related Gaëlle Lenfant, then “young activist” socialist.
No complaints have been announced. Eric Zemmour declined to comment to Mediapart. But the entourage of the far-right candidate reacted: “Mediapart wants to make a hit the day of the day [des droits] of women by recycling testimonials already published last year. Shabby at five weeks of the first round.”
Asked about France 2, on December 9, 2021, about previous Mediapart articles, Eric Zemmour had estimated that “not” have to answer. “I don’t talk about my private life, these women accuse me, without any proof, it’s word against word”.