French senator Joël Guerriau has been suspended following a “unanimous” decision by the Horizons party after he was accused of unwittingly drugging a member of parliament in order to sexually abuse her, AFP has learned with the party.
The party will also “initiate disciplinary proceedings that could lead to permanent expulsion” and has announced that its president, former prime minister Édouard Philippe, will call complainant Sandrine Josso.
“If the facts mentioned are proven, they are very serious (…) Horizons will never tolerate the slightest complacency regarding sexual and gender-based violence,” the party wrote in a press release.
Minister Christophe Béchu, secretary general of the Horizons party, reiterated on Friday that the senator could not “stay in the party (…) if he were there.” [avait] the slightest doubt.
The senator was charged on Friday evening and placed under judicial supervision.
According to the Paris public prosecutor’s office, the complainant felt ill after drinking something on the night of Tuesday to Wednesday in the Paris home of the 66-year-old senator, with whom she had no close relationship.
Samples from Ms. Josso’s body revealed the presence of ecstasy and searches were conducted at the senator’s office and at her home, where investigators found ecstasy, according to prosecutors.
Joël Guerriau denied the allegations during a confrontation.
According to Sandrine Josso’s lawyer, Julia Minkowski, the MP was “arrested after drinking a glass of champagne” and then saw the senator “grabbing a small plastic bag with something white in it” and was able to “free himself from it at the last minute “. Ambush”.
His lawyer Mr. Rémi-Pierre Drai told AFP.
According to sources familiar with the case, Mr. Guerriau said he believed he was given a euphoric, rather than ecstasy, drug by a member of the Senate for his own use to cope with what he called personal trials.
Joël Guerriau is a banker by profession and has been elected to the upper house since 2011. He is Secretary of the Senate and Vice President of the Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defense and Armed Services.
The head of the centrist Union faction, Hervé Marseille, interviewed on Franceinfo on Saturday, believes that there will be “precautionary measures” against him in the upper house.