Two women accuse new minister Macron of rape

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One of the alleged victims assures that she was “drugged” by Damien Abad and that she was sexually assaulted

Damien Abad, one of French President Emmanuel Macron’s new ministers, has been accused of rape by two women. The conservative politician flatly denied the allegations on Sunday. The events are said to have taken place more than a decade ago, in 2010 and 2011, according to the two alleged victims, who do not know each other. Abad, 42, was appointed Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and Disability in Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne’s new government last Friday. “Of course I was not aware,” Borne said on Sunday, admitting that he was aware of the allegations and the file of one of the complaints through the digital newspaper ‘Mediapart’. these alleged cases.

The head of the executive branch admitted to French journalists that if there are new elements and if justice resumes these proceedings, “we will draw all the consequences”, implying that the scandal could cost Abad his job. Borne, the second woman to become prime minister in France, made it clear that “in all matters of harassment and assault, there can be no impunity”. On May 13, the Observatory for Sexual and Sexist Violence in Politics received a letter from a woman who accused the now minister of rape. The complaint was also forwarded to the prosecutor’s office and to Los Republicanos and La Republica en Marcha, Macron’s party.

One of the women accusing him met Abad at the wedding of two mutual friends in 2010. The alleged victim reported that after having a glass of champagne with the politician in a bar, he woke up the next day in a room of a hotel “in her underwear”, “in shock”, with pain in her body and with the feeling of being “drugged”. Another woman filed a “rape” complaint against Abad in 2017 for events dating back to 2011, but it was filed without a thorough investigation of the case, the French digital newspaper reported.

The minister denied the allegations and assured that all sexual relations he has had throughout his life have been consensual. Abad argues in his defense that it is “physically impossible for him to” commit the described acts “without outside help” because of his disability. He suffers from arthrogryposis, a rare congenital disease that affects the joints, reducing their mobility and causing deformities.

Acting as a deputy since 2012, he was considered one of the great additions of the new Executive. The politician, who will participate in the first council of ministers next Monday, comes from the moderate right. Before being appointed as a minister, he was the head of the Los Republicanos parliamentary faction in the National Assembly. Abad is a graduate of the prestigious Sciences Po University and is of Spanish descent. His grandparents fled the Franco dictatorship to France, according to the French press. Between 2009 and 2012 he was European Member. In 2017, he was spokesperson for presidential candidate François Fillon.

Source: La Verdad

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