Cécile was 23 years old in 1998. At the time, she worked for the French Embassy in Moscow. She is responsible for resolving logistical issues at the Embassy, she manages visa issues or customs complications. One day, she receives a phone call from her supervisor. And an instruction: she must solve a problem urgently. The material of journalist Nicolas Hulot is blocked at Moscow airport and he must be helped. It was the President of the Republic at the time Jacques Chirac himself who asked for it.
Finally, the film crew of “Ushuaia” is allowed to enter Russian territory. To thank her, Nicolas Hulot invites her to dinner with his team in his hotel restaurant, then in a nightclub for a drink. During this evening, a few hours later, Cécile claims to have been sexually assaulted by Nicolas Hulot. We transcribe below his remarks delivered in the program “Special Envoy”.
“So we dine at the Novotel hotel in Sheremetyevo. After dinner, he suggests going for a walk in town, going for a drink in town. And we go. We go to a club in the center of Moscow. A very, very select club. It was a large, very illuminated room. There is music, there is a large bar, there are ‘standing tables’. And Nicolas Hulot offers me a white Martini.
There, I find myself a little confused because because what can we say to someone who is so famous … I just have nothing to say to him. And since the club is famous for its beautiful women, I said: ‘I’m a little surprised because there aren’t that many pretty women. ‘ There are no exceptionally beautiful women, contrary to what I had been told about this place. I have nothing to say to him in reality. So, I find the first topic that passes. And it is true that there are people, but nothing transcendent. And he answers me: ‘Ah yes, there is one which is magnificent ‘. And I say: ‘Is that so ? Where ?’ He answers me : ‘Well it’s you ‘. So there, ‘warning, warning’. It is not going well at all.
“I say: ‘Ok, we stop, I’m going to go home’. And there, it’s the drama because he also decides to go home.”
Cecileon the program “Special Envoy”
‘Ah, how are you coming home?’ [me dit-il]. I’ll take a taxi, in Moscow, it was very common. We stop the cars, we get brought back, that was how we did at the time. I must have mentioned that I lived not far from the airport road, and he said: ‘We take the same taxi because we are going on the same path’. We still have to put it in context. I am 23 years old. Nicolas Hulot. Elysium. Well, ok, we say ‘Yes, yes sir’.
And we get in the taxi. I can’t wait for one thing to end because the whole thing made me very uncomfortable. In the car, he starts talking to me. ‘What are you doing ?’ Because I was returning to France at the end of September, I had been taken in DESS, I was terminating my contract. And I would go back to Paris to study. This is where he becomes enterprising since he tells me: ‘If you want, I can help you get a job at TF1 ‘. I tell him : ‘No thank you, I’ll manage, I don’t need it, it’s going to be fine ‘. And there, he puts his hand on my thigh, and he says to me: ‘If you want, I can help you get a job at TF1’. I say : ‘No thanks’. I shift my hand. And he insists, and he insists.
“Afterwards, it is no longer the hand on the thigh, he throws himself on me. He tries to kiss me, he touches my breasts, the crotch.”
Cecileon the program “Special Envoy”
I am in a tailored skirt. I struggle. I pushed him away. I hit him in the face. Because I’m in a cab, he’s on top of me. I hit as best I could, what I could, what I could do. I think the ‘No’ was very clear. The ‘No’ once, the ‘No’ twice, I think I made it clear that I did not want to have sex with this gentleman.
I remember this violence, this aggression, his hands on me. And then I see myself at home in the dark, in my apartment and in between I don’t know how I got out of the taxi. I do not know. I do not remember.”
[A l’époque, Cécile n’envisage pas de porter plainte.] “In Russia? In Moscow? Against a friend of President Jacques Chirac? No, no, I did not consider it at all. Never. How? Who? The question did not even arise. He is a friend. by Jacques Chirac. All requests come from the Elysee. No, that did not occur to me. “
Extract from “Nicolas Hulot: women accuse”, broadcast in “Special Envoy” on November 25, 2021.
The facts described by Cécile are prescribed. Nicolas Hulot is presumed innocent. The journalists of “Special Envoy” contacted Nicolas Hulot and his lawyers on several occasions. He refused to answer their questions in front of a camera. His lawyers also declined interview requests. They let it be known that their client strongly disputes the facts, and more generally claims to have never assaulted a woman in his life.
Reached by phone on November 9, 2021, Nicolas Hulot says: “I am devastated, I have never had ambiguous relations. (…) You know very well that it will be word against word. The word of men is questioned, so it is no longer even worth talking about. to defend oneself. (…). And how do you want me to remember? I remember mostly what I never did. I have never in my life coerced into anything, anyone. Never, neither close nor by force. When we do not feel, that we do not seduce, or that we are not seduced, we stop there, it is like that since the dawn of time. ..) I am not going to counter-attack [en disant] that they’re all liars, stuff like that. I do not know. What I know is what I never did. But when you’re innocent like I am, innocent in a way you can’t even imagine … You’re trapped anyway, no matter what you say, speaking is suspect. Whatever we say. Here is. We cannot defend ourselves. We cannot defend ourselves… Because in this legitimate, necessary fight of women, the word of women is sacred, and there you have it. “
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