The investigation opened in July for sexual assault and harassment against the chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly Eric Coquerel (LFI) after accusations by left-wing activist Sophie Tissier was dismissed, a- we learned on Monday from a source familiar with the matter.
The procedure was the subject of a classification without follow-up for insufficiently characterized offense on February 10, confirmed to AFP the Paris prosecutor’s office.
Ms. Tissier, a 43-year-old former figure of “yellow vests”, had filed a complaint in early July at a police station in a suburb of Paris. She denounced facts “may be similar to a sexual assault” dating from August 23, 2014 in Grenoble, which was allegedly committed by Mr. Coquerel.
The Paris prosecutor’s office had opened a preliminary investigation on July 12 for sexual assault and harassment.
Mr. Coquerel, who disputes these accusations, had refused to speak on the subject, saying only that he did not feel “weakened” at the head of the Assembly’s Finance Committee by this investigation.
The investigations, entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of delinquency to persons (BRDP), concluded that there was not enough evidence for Eric Coquerel to be the subject of criminal proceedings.
“Ms. Tissier intends to use all legal remedies to challenge this classification. She remains a victim of the behavior” that she denounced, reacted to AFP her lawyer, Me Etienne Lesage.
His client had told the investigators that during a dance party, at the end of a day of conferences, Éric Coquerel had had “supported gestures”. “His hands were sticky and slipped on inappropriate parts of the body (…), he touched my buttocks several times”, she had related.
The activist said she had “made it clear that he (the) bothered and (the) indisposed”.
The evening continuing in a nightclub, he would have “taken her by the waist and hips with insistence”, then sent invitations to join him at the hotel, according to her.
Ms. Tissier had made public her accusations against Mr. Coquerel just after the latter’s accession, on June 30, to the strategic post of chairman of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.
He had refused to step back for the time of the investigation, as asked of him in particular by the ecologist deputy and feminist activist Sandrine Rousseau.
The leader of the Insoumis, Jean-Luc Mélenchon, had given him his support. “Mean reply against Eric Coquerel intended to smear him without cause. Complete solidarity with him,” he tweeted when the accusations were revealed.
02/20/2023 17:39:19 – Paris (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
