“Violated at 11”: the chilling and moving testimony of deputy Bruno Questel: Femme Actuelle Le MAG

"It's an evil that is everywhere, that paralyzes you", entrusted the politician. Wednesday January 27, 2021 on the plateau of BFMTV, the deputy La République en Marche of the Eure, Bruno Questel, wished to end the silence that accompanied the most traumatic memory of his life. Carried by the edifying testimony of Camille Kouchner in La Familia Grande, who accuses the political scientist Olivier Duhamel of having committed incest on his brother, the guest of Bruce Toussaint told how a neighbor of the village where he was staying on vacation raped him when he was only eleven years old. Like the story of "Victor" Kouchner, Bruno Questel tried to find support from his family … They finally decided to stop there. Forty years later, the aftereffects have not disappeared, even worse, they marked the deputy "with a red iron". Upset and trembling voice, Bruno Questel launched into the story of the day which ended the first part of his life.

"I walk into this room, there is this gentleman. It was like an octopus"

It was in 1977, in a Corsican village, that the facts unfolded. Then aged eleven, Bruno Questel is looking for a way to watch the last stage of the Tour de France. Accompanied by his parents, he goes to a neighbor who takes him to a room where the television is located. "I enter this room where there is this gentleman. And it was like an octopus. Little by little, get closer … And then, the words, the gestures, what he asks you to do, the breath, the language … everything ", he explains, both hands on his face. "When I talk to you, I feel the same, I feel like I'm strangled. The feeling of having balls there, which prevents you from breathing, this pressure that makes you paralyzed," he adds, upset. When leaving the place, the executioner of the politician asks him to come back the next day.

"That's where, no doubt, it saved me. Because I told my parents that. We came home, then I broke down. My father immediately went out to look for him. But he did not find it", he explains. If her mother met the assailant on her way a few days later, she nevertheless decides to "stay here". As Bruno Questel explains, this moving memory has long been buried in a corner of his memory. Suffering from post-traumatic amnesia, all memories have "farted in the face" while at work: "I went to the bathroom, I sit on the floor. And there, boom. It all comes back." Now fifty-four years old, the LREM deputy wishes to make a contribution to the collective work of free speech but also to raise awareness of the justice system on limitation periods: "You can't say to someone 'you had to wake up earlier.' To me, that is not possible."

Read also : Duhamel affair: why the Elysée is "paralyzed" after the revelations of Camille Kouchner