The prosecution is investigating the alleged crimes attributed to Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, which are said to have happened in his office years ago, although the victims have filed the lawsuits following his recent appointment to the Macron Executive
New controversy in the government of French Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. Chrysoula Zacharopoulou, France’s Secretary of State for Development, has been accused of rape by two women for events that allegedly took place years ago in her gynecology clinic. A third woman accuses him of “gynecological violence” that allegedly took place during a medical examination.
Zacharopoulou, who has taken note of the complaints filed against her by the press, considers the allegations “unacceptable”. “The serious allegations made against me during medical clinical trials to diagnose and care for my patients’ disease are unacceptable and outrageous,” the politician said in a statement from her lawyer to the French press.
The Secretary of State feels “shocked and deeply hurt” by these serious allegations. “I have never imposed the slightest examination on any of my patients,” says Zacharopoulou, a gynecologist who specializes in endometriosis, a chronic inflammatory gynecological condition in which endometrial tissue is present outside the uterus.
The Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation on May 27 after two people filed separate rape complaints against the secretary of state, according to the magazine ‘Marianne’. The investigation has been entrusted to the Brigade for the Repression of Crimes against Persons (BRPD, for its acronym in French). The first lawsuit against Zacharopoulou, a Frenchwoman of Greek descent, was filed on May 25. The second was filed on June 16 and refers to an alleged rape that took place in 2016 “in a medical setting”. The third complaint of “gynecological violence” was filed last Thursday for events alleged to have taken place in 2018 during a consultation for endometriosis.
The lawsuits came days after Zacharopoulou was appointed secretary of state on May 20 by President Emmanuel Macron. Before her appointment, the doctor had been MEP for La República en Marcha, the president’s party, since July 2019. He left the post a month ago to join the government of Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne. He now heads the Development, Labourphony and International Agreements portfolio and reports directly to the Secretary of State, Catherine Colonna.
During her career as a gynecologist, Zacharopoulou, 46, specialized in endometriosis, a disease that affects 10 to 15% of women of childbearing age and causes significant pain during menstruation or ovulation. The former MEP delivered a report to President Macron this year on how to improve and recognize the diagnosis of endometriosis.
In addition to the Secretary of State, two other members of the current French government have been accused of rape: the Interior Minister, Gérarld Darmanin, and the Solidarity Minister, Damien Abad. Darmanin was charged in 2017 with rape, sexual harassment and breach of trust. The events are said to have taken place in 2009, early in his career, when Darmanin worked in the legal affairs department of the Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), Nicolas Sarkozy’s party. The complaint was initially rejected and later reopened. The Public Prosecution Service has requested that the case be filed in early 2022.
Damien Abad, appointed as Solidarity Minister a month ago, has also been charged with alleged rape by two women. The minister, who is physically handicapped, denies this. Abad assures that all sexual relations he has had in his life have been consensual. Abad’s case also came to light, as did Zacharopoulou’s after his appointment as minister.
Source: La Verdad
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