a third woman denounces sexual assault and attempted rape – Liberation

A new woman in “Mediapart” accuses the Minister of Solidarity of deviant behavior. It clearly evokes an attempted rape. Damien Abad, he denies.–

An attempted rape. A new testimony collected by Mediapart, again calls into question the Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad, in the midst of the legislative campaign. This woman, from the center and right-wing parties, describes an elected official who feels “all powerful”who would have had gestures and words “displaced” in the professional context, in particular with regard to women of his party with lower status.

Similarities with a first testimony

Laëtitia, name chosen by Mediapart, is an elected centrist. Its history dates back to the years 2009 and 2010 and is supported by several other testimonies. This describes a “unhealthy climate” and sexist within the federation of Young Centrists of which she is the president. Damien Abad has just been elected MEP. Laëtitia explains how the now minister would be “got sticky”kissing him and taking the opportunity to put his hands on his body and chest.

But it’s a party “in the first half of 2010” which particularly marked her. At the end of a dinner with executives of the New Center organized at the Ministry of Defense by Hervé Morin – then minister and president of the party –, Damien Abad would have invited a small group, in which was Laëtitia, to a party at he, in the Latin Quarter in Paris, writes Mediapart.

During the evening, the deputy would have been “overexcited” et “in a feeling of omnipotence”, according to her. He would have him “offered a drink”at the bottom of which she says she saw “Something”. “I didn’t know what it was, I was suspicious given his past behavior, I was afraid that he had put something in me to annoy me”, she says. She says she went immediately “spit out” his sip in the toilet.

Her account has similarities to the testimony of Chloé, who accuses Damien Abad of having her “drugged”. “When I read his story, it reminded me so much of mine”explains Laëtitia, who had “found this stuff at the bottom of the glass weird enough to relate to [ses] amis». This is also what many of the people she confided in when they discovered the revelations of Mediapartas evidenced by messages and several testimonies collected.

“I was scared, I was flabbergasted”

Laëtitia explains that when she left the toilet that evening, Damien Abad was waiting for her “behind the door”. According to his account, everything would have gone “very quickly” : the deputy would have “pushed into a room opposite”, then would have told him “insanities”– “You will feel it pass, it is huge” ; “Go ahead, suck me” . “You would have thought he was in a hard movie.” She claims that he would have “pushed [sa] head”towards his crotch, “his cock had not come out, but his pants were open”.

She says she was “extremely surprised by his strength”,even though at the time she was “Very athletic”. “My head was stuck under his arm and against his chest, I couldn’t get out of it, I was scared, I was flabbergasted. I struggled, I punched him in the stomach” she assures. He would then have “completely reversed the roles” according to her : “It was appalling, he had just attacked me and he started whining, as if he were the victim. While continuing to squeeze my head, he repeated, swaying: “But why don’t you want to sleep with me? Is it because I’m disabled? But disabled or not, a man who attacks me, I would not sleep with.

Damien Abad, who is seeking a new mandate as a deputy on Sunday in Ain, denounces for his part the “carefully chosen schedule of these publications”and the “partiality”of the Mediapart investigation, which, according to him, has a motivation “Politics” . “As for the allegations reported, they revolt me ​​and I categorically refute them” he adds.

These accusations come after those published by the online media on May 20, the day after the appointment of Damien Abad as Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and Disabled People: two women, quoted by Mediapart, accused the new minister of raped in 2010 and 2011.

According to the Paris prosecutor’s office, one of them – who confirmed her story to AFP – filed a complaint twice, but these two complaints were dismissed in 2012, then in 2017, first for “complainant’s deficiency”,then ‘in the absence of a sufficiently serious offence’.

As for the other accuser, the prosecutor’s office announced on May 25 that it was not opening a preliminary investigation “as is” into the facts she denounces, for lack of any element allowing her to be identified. His testimony was indeed transmitted to justice in an anonymized form, by the Observatory of sexist and sexual violence in politics.

“Is Damien Abad worthy of exercising his functions and working for the general interest?”,questioned this association on Tuesday after the new revelations of Médiapart, adding “that a lack of reaction could, in the state, be interpreted only as a validation by the government of this type of violent behavior towards women”.

Updated at 9:30 p.m. with the reactions of Damien Abad and the Observatory of sexist and sexual violence in politics.

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