Accused of “psychological violence” against his ex-partner, Julien Bayou announced this Thursday in a press release to AFP that he was withdrawing from his Europe Écologie-Les Verts party and his group in the National Assembly, to be able to defend themselves.
Targeted by a complaint for moral harassment and abuse of weakness
Taking “note” of his ex-partner’s complaint, which will, according to him, allow him to “prove (his) innocence”, the MP “decides to withdraw” from his group and his party, to ensure his defense and allow them “to work calmly during the upcoming investigation”. “I will no longer speak on their behalf during the investigation,” he adds.
The MP is the target of a complaint for moral harassment and abuse of weakness from his ex-spouse, Anaïs Leleux, who said on Wednesday that she wanted to make this sequence “the feminist trial of the century”.
“I know that they will allow me to resume my place, once my innocence is definitively proven”
Julien Bayou had already withdrawn in September 2022, even leaving the head of his party and his group because of the first revelations on this affair. But in February 2023 his group finally recorded the end of this withdrawal, after the closure of an internal party investigation, due to not being able to hear the complainant.
Julien Bayou estimated Thursday that knowing his group and his party “attached to the rule of law, I know that they will allow me to resume my place, in the group as within the movement, once my innocence is definitively proven”.
The facts reported by the alleged victim “are extremely serious and we take them very seriously. Listening to the words of women victims, encouraging them and acting accordingly, is our responsibility as a party”, the environmentalist party reacted on Wednesday. .