Investigation into suspected sexual assault against Jean-Vincent Place extended to second complaint

Former Secretary of State Jean-Vincent Place, an environmentalist who has already been charged with sexual assault and sexual harassment following a complaint by a first woman in 2021, now faces a new charge, Paris prosecutors told Le Parisien newspaper on Tuesday. May 7, AFP information confirmed.

In the fall of 2023, a second woman filed a complaint against Jean-Vincent Place, alleging that she was sexually assaulted in Seoul by a former government member in May 2016. The judicial information concerning Jean-Vincent Place was extended in October 2023 to facts announced abroad, the Paris prosecutor’s office said.

The investigation began in March 2022.

In November 2021, the first woman filed a complaint against Jean-Vincent Plaza for sexual harassment. This former colleague, who followed him from the Senate to the State Secretariat for Reform and Simplification, accused him of sexual harassment between 2012 and 2016.

According to her, Jean-Vincent Place “touched her buttocks” in August 2015 in a Lille nightclub, on the sidelines of the Europe Écologie les Verts (EELV) summer gathering. According to the woman’s complaint, consulted by our AFP colleagues, former Secretary of State Francois Hollande also “intentionally touched her breast” in May 2016 during an official trip to Seoul by car.

During the investigation, police interviewed a second woman. Then she refused to file a complaint against the politician.

But in March 2022, the Paris prosecutor’s office nevertheless opened a judicial investigation against these two victims on the facts of “suspicion of sexual violence by a person abusing his powers,” “sexual harassment by a person abusing his powers.” powers conferred on him by his official duties” and “sexual violence” in connection with the facts exposed in France and abroad, the Parisian prosecutor’s office explains to Le Parisien.

Part of the procedure has been canceled

However, Jean-Vincent Place was only charged with the acts of which the first applicant was accused, which took place between 2012 and 2016.

And for good reason: “actually investigating criminal acts that are likely to have been committed by the French abroad is only possible if the potential victim has not filed a complaint or local authorities have not made an official statement,” the report says. Paris prosecutor’s office.

Since none of these alternative conditions had been fulfilled (the second applicant had refused to lodge an application at that time), the Investigative Chamber of the Paris Court of Appeal, in whose case Jean-Vincent Place had intervened, quashed, on 14 February 2023, the part relating to actions that might have been committed. were committed abroad, as reported by the second woman.

The procedure is extended to the second complaint

In the fall of 2023, as the judicial investigation was drawing to a close, this second woman finally decided to file a complaint, allowing this aspect to be reopened, the Paris prosecutor’s office said. Thus, after this complaint, the judicial information procedure was extended to the facts reported abroad by the second applicant, explains the Paris prosecutor’s office.

Therefore, Jean-Vincent Place must be questioned again and charges may be brought against him based on these facts. Le Parisien was unable to immediately contact the lawyer of former government member Me Jade Duslin.

At this stage, Jean-Vincent Place is accused of sexual assault and sexual harassment by a person abusing the powers conferred by his position, solely in connection with the facts concerning the first applicant.