Joël Guerriau, a French senator with the centrist Horizons occasion, has been detained by police in Paris on suspicion that he drugged a feminine lawmaker as a way to assault her, the general public prosecutor’s workplace stated Friday.
Answering a written query from POLITICO, the Paris public prosecutor’s workplace confirmed that Guerriau had been arrested on Wednesday night, after an unnamed individual filed a grievance towards him for “administering to an individual, with out their data, a substance which can alter their judgment or management over their actions as a way to commit rape or sexual assault.”
The French senator is suspected of “administering ecstasy to a [female] visitor, with out her data,” and ecstasy was discovered at his residence in a police raid, the prosecutor’s workplace stated.
He remained in custody on Friday morning, and faces as much as 5 years in jail and a €75,000 effective.
In accordance with an official on the French Senate, who was granted anonymity to debate the confidential problem, the feminine visitor is a sitting Member of Parliament, confirming a number of French media stories.
Guerriau’s lawyer, Rémi-Pierre Drai instructed French newswire Agence France-Presse that he wouldn’t give any data on the “substance” of the case “out of respect for my shopper and for the complainant.”
“We’re very removed from the scabrous interpretation that may be deduced from studying the primary press articles,” the lawyer added.
Guerriau, 66, is a senator from the western Loire-Atlantique district, the place he was first elected in 2011.
In 2016, he filed a grievance after a magnified image of a penis was revealed on his Twitter account. He then claimed his account had been hacked.
He’s a member of the Horizons occasion, created by former Prime Minister Édouard Philippe, and which is a part of President Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary coalition.
France’s Atmosphere Minister Christophe Béchu, who’s Horizons’ secretary-general, on Friday expressed “consternation and dismay” over the information in an look on public broadcaster France Inter.
If the allegations are correct, “he clearly can not keep on with the occasion,” Béchu stated, including the occasion’s politburo would assess the case at a gathering on Saturday morning.
Guerriau’s lawyer, Drai, was not instantly obtainable for remark.
Sarah Paillou and Pauline de Saint Remy contributed reporting from Paris.