The public prosecutor of Tulle, François Tessier, confirmed, Friday 1er March to World, to have “ordered the opening of a preliminary investigation” following a complaint filed on February 13 with the Limoges public prosecutor’s office against the mayor of Limoges, Emile Roger Lombertie (Les Républicains), head of the municipality since 2014 and vice-president of the Limoges urban community Métropole (CULM), as well as against two of its deputies and vice-presidents of the urban community, Jean-Marie Lagedamont and Catherine Mauguien-Sicard.
Revealed by The worldthe complaint had been filed by an executive and a former director of the CULM for “moral harassment” and for any offense likely to be classified against the persons concerned, in particular alleged counts of sexual assault and harassment.
Contacted, the Limoges town hall, the CULM, as well as the three elected officials involved “take note” of the opening of a preliminary investigation but did not wish to comment at this stage. No more than the plaintiffs’ lawyer, Christelle Mazza.
“Look full of contempt”
Supporting examples, the complainants denounced a “abnormal exercise of hierarchical authority” by the three elected officials targeted and condemn the “highly problematic and toxic comments and behaviors” of the mayor, “comments of a sexist, gritty, tendentious and denigrating nature, as well as behavior of an unequivocal sexual nature”.
The complainant provided a verbatim record of the serious, tendentious remarks and other sexual allusions to the proceedings. that the mayor would have given him “on multiple occasions”notably between 2015 and 2018. The complainant mentioned, for his part, the slippage of the councilor during a meeting, in May 2023, during which Mr. Lombertie, a retired psychiatrist, allegedly told him “tightly gripped his arm, insulting him and threatening him with a look full of contempt.”
Under Article 40 of the Code of Criminal Procedure, the plaintiffs also reported “words and behaviors” presumed “which they witnessed” or have been aware, since 2014, within the municipality and the urban community. Facts likely, according to them, to be qualified as sexual assault and harassment.
They thus added to their complaint the certificate of a former close collaborator of the mayor. She relates having suffered from the city councilor acts of “physical and moral harassment” and denounces serious remarks and “a slap on the butt”.
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