In a video survey published by Mediapart Tuesday, March 8 in the morning, eight women, some with their faces uncovered, accuse Eric Zemmour of inappropriate behavior and sexual assault, for alleged facts ranging from 1999 to 2019, when he was a journalist. The entourage of the far-right candidate reacted to Agence France-Presse (AFP) saying that ” Mediapart wants to make a hit on the day of the Day [des droits] of women by recycling testimonials already published last year. Shabby at five weeks of the first round ” of the presidential election. The candidate himself refused to answer questions from journalists on the news site.
If some of the women in the video had already testified to Mediapart in two articles published during the year 2021, others speak for the first time publicly. This is the case of Claire. Then aged 18, she recounts having completed a brief internship in journalism within the editorial staff of the Figaro in 2002. Called by Mr. Zemmour to help him solve a computer problem at his office, the latter claims to have « feel[ti] his hand in [s]one back that goes back and forth from bottom to top ».
The intern reports this behavior to her internship referent, Pascale Sauvage, a former colleague of the political columnist in the national daily. The journalist then decides to warn her colleague: “I told him, ‘don’t touch the intern.’ » She claims that Mr. Zemmour replied to her: “If now we can no longer flirt with the trainees. The trainees, it is nevertheless made to make pipes and coffee. »
For Eric Zemmour, “it’s word against word”
Another former trainee, Séverine, accuses him of having “very raw proposals for sexual relations” and to have it “blocked against the wall of the elevator and forcefully kissed on the mouth” during his internship in the editorial staff of the Figaro in 1999.
Among the other testimonies, Gaëlle Lenfant, former responsible for women’s rights of the Socialist Party (PS), elected opposition member of the Aix-en-Provence municipal council, also accuses the former editorialist of having “kissed by force” during a PS summer university held in La Rochelle in the early 2000s, when she was “young socialist activist “.
She had been the first of the eight women to have expressed themselves on such facts, on April 24, 2021, in a post on Facebook, then in an article by Mediapart. “I found myself so flabbergasted that I could do nothing but push him away and run away”then reported Mme Lenfant with the independent media. In the video, she says she has since filed a complaint.
On December 9, 2021, interviewed on France 2 on previous articles Mediapart recounting these accusations, Mr. Zemmour had estimated that ” not “ to have “to answer. I’m not talking about my private life. These women accuse me, without any proof, it’s word against word. » Asked again by Mediapart before the publication of this new investigation for a right of reply, the candidate of Reconquest! did not respond.
Monday March 7, the day before the publication of the survey, he was questioned like other candidates by LCI and She about women’s rights and violence against them. He then said: “Violence by men, whether inside the family or outside, I mean, all violence is absolutely unforgivable and must be punished very severely. »