Eric Cockerell: Sexual harassment and harassment investigation against LFI MP closed

This is the end of the investigation. An investigation launched in July into sexual harassment and assault has been closed against LFI MP Eric Cockerel, we learned on Monday from a source familiar with the matter. The procedure was classified without further action for an insufficiently characterized offense on February 10, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed.

Former Yellow Vest figure Sophie Tissier, 43, filed a complaint in early July at a police station in a Paris suburb. She condemned the facts that “may look like a sexual rape” that took place on August 23, 2014 in Grenoble and was allegedly committed by Eric Cockerel.

On July 12, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened a preliminary investigation into sexual violence and harassment.

Eric Cockerell, who disputes the allegations, declined to speak on the subject, saying only that he does not feel “weakened” as head of the Assembly’s finance committee as a result of this investigation.

Sophie Tissier ‘remains a victim’

An investigation commissioned by the BRDP concluded that there was not enough evidence to prosecute Eric Cockerell.

“Madame Tissier intends to use all legal remedies to challenge this classification. She remains a victim of behavior,” which she condemned, responded her lawyer, Etienne Lesage.

His client told investigators that Eric Cockerel made “supportive gestures” during a dance evening at the end of a day of conferences. “His hands were sticky and slipped over inappropriate parts of the body (…), he touched my buttocks several times,” she said. The activist said she “let him know he was irritable and unwell”.

According to her, in the evening, continuing in a nightclub, he “persistently grabbed the waist and hips” and then sent invitations to join him at the hotel. Sophie Tissier made public her allegations against Eric Cockerel immediately after the latter took office, on June 30, in the strategic post of chairman of the National Assembly’s finance committee.

He refused to back down during the investigation, as requested by deputy environmentalist and feminist activist Sandrine Rousseau, among other things.

Insumi leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon gave him his support. “The petty reply to Eric Cockerell was intended to vilify him for no reason. Full solidarity with him,” he tweeted as the allegations became known.