Suspected of being at the origin of the dissemination of sexual videos involving Benjamin Griveaux in the middle of the municipal campaign, Piotr Pavlenski and his partner Alexandra de Taddeo appear Wednesday and Thursday before the criminal court for invasion of privacy. .
The two videos had caused the political fall of Benjamin Griveaux, then deputy and candidate for mayor of Paris after having been the spokesperson for the government. On February 12, 2020, images were broadcast on a site called “Pornopolitique”. We see an unidentified man masturbating. The link is quickly relayed on social networks, accompanied by screenshots of messages received by Alexandra de Taddeo who had a brief relationship with Benjamin Griveaux a year and a half earlier when he was government spokesperson. His companion Piotr Pavlenski then claims the dissemination of the videos.
Two days later, with a defeated face and a blank voice, Benjamin Griveaux announces that he is withdrawing from the race for the Parisian municipal elections. He explains that he wants to protect his family, he who is married and the father of three children. The next day, he filed a complaint before completely abandoning political life the following year, and in particular his mandate as deputy, to convert from then on to the private sector.
>> Benjamin Griveaux case: who is Piotr Pavlenski, the controversial Russian artist behind the sex videos?
Suspected of being at the origin of the dissemination of the images, the Pavlenski-de Taddeo couple appeared on Wednesday June 28 and Thursday June 29 before the criminal court for invasion of privacy. Benjamin Griveaux will not attend the trial.
Political or artistic motivations?
In this case, the defense of the Russian artist has evolved, but with one constant. If he still claims broadcasting, his motivations seem to have changed. They were originally political, Piotr Pavlenski explaining that he wanted to denounce the hypocrisy of the Macronist candidate, his lies, his contradictions, while he was, according to him, propagandizing traditional family values.
With his defense, he secondly advances artistic motivations, he who has always liked to provoke with shock performances. Piotr Pavlenski sewed his lips in support of the protest group Pussy Riot and also nailed his testicles in Red Square. In France, he has already been sentenced to three years in prison, one of which is closed, for having burned down the facade of a branch of the Banque de France.
His companion, on the other hand, has constantly minimized his involvement. She recognizes an essentially virtual relationship with Benjamin Griveaux. The two met on Instagram and only saw each other once. She also admits having recorded the videos supposed to be ephemeral by changing the settings of her phone. But she denies any intent to harm. According to Alexandra de Taddeo, even if she supported her approach once the videos were put online, her companion would have recovered the images without her knowledge.
The judges, however, retained her direct involvement, in particular because she chaired an association which financially supported Pornopolitique, the site on which the images of the scandal were broadcast. “The methods of the Stasi to kill a candidate“according to Benjamin Griveaux’s lawyer.