Accusations targeting psychoanalyst Gérard Miller have multiplied, since the magazine’s first revelations She about him, at the end of January. Tuesday, February 20 in the evening, a 39-year-old woman filed a complaint of rape, targeting the author and columnist, franceinfo learned from the complainant’s lawyer, confirming information from the Parisian.
This is the third complaint filed against Gérard Miller in the space of a few weeks. Contacted by franceinfo, the famous 75-year-old psychoanalyst, professor and committed to La France insoumise (LFI), does not comment on this new complaint against it, referring to its previous declarations after the magazine’s revelations She and Mediapart.
Franceinfo takes stock of what we know about the accusations against him, while dozens of women have now testified against the therapist.
First accusations of rape and sexual assault
At the end of January, the magazine She publishes a first investigation about Gérard Miller. The women’s weekly collected the testimony of a woman accusing the psychoanalyst of rape in 2004, when she was 19 years old. She says she met the columnist on the set of the France 2 show “On a tout avoir” with a friend. According to his account, Gérard Miller, then aged 55, invited them to join him at a show, then offered them a drink at his home. The psychoanalyst, according to her, then suggested a hypnosis game. It is in this context that this woman claims to have been sexually assaulted, then raped. Her friend leaves, but she is “stunned”, as she describes it to the magazine: “It’s like a trap closing on me. I can no longer move, I’m a dead body trembling.”
In this investigation, two other women claim to have suffered sexual assault. She reports the story of journalist and director Muriel Cousin, who claims to have been touched during a hypnosis session in 1990, when she was 23 years old. A woman, who worked as a babysitter for a child of the psychoanalyst, accuses him of having touched her breast and of having tried to kiss her while he was driving her home. The events took place in 1993, according to his account. She was then 19 years old. The magazine also tells how Gérard Miller proposed hypnosis sessions for young actresses in the late 1990s, when he was a screenwriter. According to information from the weekly, one of them accuses him of sexual assault.
Contacted by She, Gérard Miller says “never sexually abused anyone, under any circumstances”. “If something displeased them while they were with me, I have no hesitation in saying so: nothing I perceived indicated to me that they wanted to put an end to the situation, because otherwise right now I would have put an end to it”, he assures in a letter published on X. The psychoanalyst assures that he has never practiced hypnosis in his office or at his home. What took place in a private setting was a matter of “elementary tests” And “the one who agreed to engage in it was absolutely not hypnotized, he or she remained perfectly conscious, in total possession of his or her means”, he says.
An accumulation of testimonies and a first complaint
On February 6, a week after these first revelations, Mediapart revealed 10 new testimonies from women accusing Gérard Miller, including three who were minors at the time of the events. They claim that the psychoanalyst sexually assaulted them or engaged in inappropriate behavior with them, over a period spanning from 1995 to 2016. According to their testimonies, the academic and director approached adolescent girls and young women who attended the shows in which he was a columnist, or on the sidelines of his courses at the University of Paris 8. According to these stories, Gérard Miller then proposed a meeting at his home, served them alcohol and could invite them to test “hypnosis experiments”, “of relaxation”.
In this article, Mediapart reports that a woman has sent a report to the Paris prosecutor’s office about the columnist, and that she wishes to file a complaint. The complainant, who testifies to the investigation site, evokes events which took place in 1995, according to her account. She was then 21 years old and Gérard Miller, 47. According to the testimony of this woman, a student of the psychoanalyst at Paris 8, the latter offered her a drink after a lesson. The young woman accepts, and according to her, her teacher “kissed by surprise” then didn’t insist when she told him “said it wasn’t possible.” Looking back on the course of this evening, she evokes conversations “exciting” with the specialist, whom she agrees to see several times. The young woman contacted him later when she was experiencing an episode of depression, to ask him for help. Gérard Miller then offers to come to his house, which she accepts. “He opened a bottle of champagne. He didn’t drink a drop, I drank the whole bottle. Afterwards, I no longer remember what happened, until I found myself in his bed with him on top of me, erect penis with a condom, jerking off”, she says in her report to the prosecution, cited by Mediapart.
The site reveals other testimonies accusing Gérard Miller of sexual assault, just like the magazine She, on February 8. After the publication of its first investigation concerning the psychoanalyst, the weekly reports having received testimonies from 41 women. “‘I felt like I was reading my story,’ they explained to us, one after the other,” underlines the magazine. She was able to speak at length with 30 of these women, 18 of whom accuse Gérard Miller of rape and sexual assault, from 1993 to 2020. The other women report attempts on the part of the accused.
A second complaint and several reports to the courts
A week later, Friday February 16, She reports that a second woman filed a complaint against Gérard Miller for sexual assault. These facts are not prescribed, according to police statements reported by the complainant. She was 15 years old at the time of the events. A high school student, she was invited to participate in the recording of the show “We tried everything”, and she too was approached by the columnist, according to her testimony collected by the weekly. Gérard Miller then suggested that they go see a show, then have lunch together. The teenager’s parents were informed and she reported feeling “safe”. “At the time, I was in therapy, everything related to psychoanalysis interested me.” When he arrives at the psychoanalyst’s home, the latter offers him an iced tea. “From there, it’s a black hole,” assures the complainant to She. “When I wake up, I am lying in a bed upstairs, on my stomach, in my panties, with my pants down around my ankles. He massages my back, my buttocks, and also my breasts, passing his hands under my torso.” The teenager says she then managed to leave.
In parallel with this new complaint, the justice system received reports from three other women, reveals Mediapart, which adds that a fourth woman was interviewed. Some in turn describe sexual assault, another an attitude of “forcer”.
A third complaint, this time for rape
The woman who filed the complaint on Tuesday filed a complaint against X with the Paris public prosecutor. She denounces facts which occurred in 2001, when she was only 17 years old, according to her account. In her complaint, consulted by franceinfo, the one who was a final year student at the time claims to have been “forced to perform masturbation and fellatio on Gérard Miller”at the latter’s home.
Now a psychologist, this woman says she contacted the psychoanalyst with a friend because she felt “intended for studies of psychology and psychoanalysis”. After two interviews, she was invited alone to Gérard Miller’s home, after brunch. This is when the events took place, according to his testimony.
The complainant filed a complaint against X, because according to her lawyer Marie-Paule Pioli, she could have been drugged at the material time. “If there was chemical submission, we do not know by whom or how. We must open up the possibilities of referral to the public prosecutor’s office”said the lawyer on franceinfo.