The legislative battle in the upscale neighborhoods of Paris turned into a legal fistfight on Wednesday with the desire of the LR district mayor Rachida Dati to implicate the LREM deputy Gilles Le Gendre in harassment cases, who accuses the city councilor of slanderous denunciation.
Former president of the LREM parliamentary group in the National Assembly, Gilles Le Gendre is the subject of a report that the LR mayor of the 7th arrondissement of the capital Rachida Dati says he transmitted to the Paris prosecutor’s office implicating the Macronist deputy candidate for his re-election, in cases of moral and sexual harassment.
Revealed by Le Parisien and Le Canard Enchaîné, this report, of which AFP has become aware, was made under article 40 of the penal code which obliges any authority to denounce an offense or crime of which it has knowledge.
It is based on an old union statement from parliamentary collaborators and press articles which denounced “the false allegations” of Gilles Le Gendre, the latter having claimed not to have been aware of accusations of sexual harassment against deputies.
Lawsuits “for slanderous denunciation”
For the former Minister of Justice, it could be a non-denunciation of an offense or even a crime. Ms. Dati, leader of the Parisian right, also takes up comments by former LREM deputy Joachim Son-Forget, renowned for his fanciful positions, accusing the former head of LREM deputies of being “suspected himself of sexual abuse which (him) was reported directly by the alleged victims”.
“A few days before an election in a constituency of which I am the outgoing deputy and she, one of the mayors, support of one of my competitors, it is easy to imagine the motivations of this self-proclaimed character witness” , castigated in a press release, Gilles Le Gendre, candidate for his own succession in the 2nd Parisian district where his main competitor Jean-Pierre Lecoq, LR mayor of the 6th arrondissement.
Gilles Le Gendre, who says he has already been confronted with these rumors internally before being cleared of them, announces that he has asked his lawyer to initiate proceedings “for slanderous denunciation against those who took part in them”.
Until the next legislative elections scheduled for June 12 and 19, the presidential majority holds 14 of the 18 Parisian constituencies, only two of which are occupied by LR deputies.