According to this young woman, activist since 2017 with the Greens, “one of the members of the cell contacted my attacker to tell him that I had made a report”.
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Reported in July to the investigation unit on sexual and gender-based violence within Europe-Ecologie-Les Verts, Julien Bayou resigned last Monday from his post as national secretary of the party. A structure “disqualified“according to the lawyer of the elected Parisian. “On four occasions, Julien Bayou asked in writing to be heard in front of this cell, which was purely and simply refused.“, reported Maître Marie Dosé. franceinfo investigated this cell. If its members were instructed not to communicate with the press, franceinfo was able to collect the testimony of a victim who also denounces faults. “One of the cell members contacted my attacker to tell him that I had made a report“, she laments to franceinfo.
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The young woman, an activist since 2017 with the Greens, seized the listening cell by email two months after a sexual assault. The facts would have taken place in the summer of 2020, sexual violence which would have been committed by a party executive in Ile-de-France. Less than two days after her testimony, which was supposed to remain secret, her attacker contacted her several times. Calls, messages that frighten the victim. “I was afraid that he would come to harass me at home. I didn’t think that by grabbing the cell, my attacker would be protected by a number of people“, she regrets.
franceinfo was able to reach the Ile-de-France executive who would be responsible for the leak. An influential person within the party in Ile-de-France and who sits on the Federal Council. If he does not deny “having informed the aggressor of this report very early on“, he denies having communicated the name of the victim. According to him, it was “a collective decision and not an individual initiative to warn another manager and friend“. However, according to several sources within the Greens, it is this initiative which has “justified his departure from the listening cell“.
For his part, the alleged attacker was suspended and he resigned in December 2020. Even before being auditioned. A management of the case that the victim denounces: “It was more difficult the treatment of my case than the attack itself in a certain way“, advances the young woman. According to her, other victims have given up entering the cell in turn. “Some people who got wind of my story told me: for the moment, I don’t dare testify. That kind of stuff doesn’t inspire confidence“.