The Nanterre public prosecutor’s office opened an investigation after the complaints of two men against the mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux (Hauts-de-Seine) André Santini (UDI) for sexual assault and sexual and moral harassment, accusations that the right-wing elected official contests. The two complaints were filed Friday by two employees of the town hall, a former chief of staff of André Santini and a former bailiff. Aged 24 and 31, they accuse the elected official, soon to be 82, of alleged facts covering several years until last May. The investigation was entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP), said Tuesday the prosecution, requested by AFP, which did not “qualify the facts at this stage”.
André Santini, historical pillar of the right in Île-de-France, disputes the facts, according to his lawyer Me Marc Bellanger, who specified Friday that he had not yet been informed of the details of the charges. Recontacted Tuesday by AFP, Me Bellanger did not wish to comment, not being “not informed” of the start of the investigations.
Mayor UDI since 1980
“The speed with which the investigation was opened is commensurate with the seriousness of the facts denounced, but also the intensity of the evidence. Everyone can measure the courage shown by the two complainants”, reacted for his part. the lawyer for the two plaintiffs, Me Christelle Mazza.
Former Secretary of State for the Public Service (2007-2009) and ex-MP, André Santini (1988-2017) is UDI mayor of Issy-les-Moulineaux, a city of nearly 70,000 inhabitants in the south-west of Paris, since 1980. He has also been vice-president of Grand Paris and head of the Syndicat des eaux d’Île-de-France since 1983.
“Predation System”
The first complainant, a 24-year-old former bailiff, claims to have been the victim between 2020 and 2022 of “touching” and denounces an “extremely oppressive and destabilizing work organization” at the town hall, according to his complaint consulted by AFP. He claims that André Santini has set up a “real system of predation”. In April 2022, “it went into a spin”, he explains: the chosen one “tried to kiss him” twice and “to approach his hand towards his sex” after a lunch.
The second, former bailiff (2011-2020) and ex-chief of staff (2020-2022), aged 31, notably accuses the mayor of having “jumped” on him in an elevator and of having tried to “kissing it while caressing it”. He also assures that André Santini proceeded “regularly” to “touching on the leg, the bottom of the buttocks and the bottom of the sex”. Alone with him in the office, he “caressed his leg to go up his back or his sex”, according to the complaint, “these actions always took place behind closed doors”.
“Revenge Campaign”
“I have known Mr. Santini for seventeen years, we have never had any complaint lodged against him on the behavior attributed to him,” his lawyer Me Bellanger told AFP on Friday. “I think this is a revenge campaign by these agents vis-à-vis the mayor, with whom there is a dispute. They are not happy with their administrative situation and have filed a complaint”, had -he adds.
The two complainants were dismissed by the mayor in May, officially for “breaking the bonds of trust necessary for our collaboration”.