The rebellious, elected president of the finance committee of the National Assembly on Thursday, defended himself from “any violence, physical or psychological constraint” with women, in a column published in the JDD this Saturday.
Éric Coquerel, the new chairman of the LFI finance commission (La France Insoumise), lamented in a column published on Saturday in the online edition of the Sunday newspaper“unfounded rumors”, while he is implicated by feminist activist Rokhaya Diallo for “his behavior with women”.
“For several years a rumor has developed about me, on social networks”, begins the deputy in this forum, who considers that “the accusation has varied over time from ‘heavy drag’, to acts of sexual harassment or even assault and now ‘inappropriate behavior'”.
But “I have never exercised physical or psychological violence or coercion to obtain a report, which characterizes the gateway to criminal behavior in the field of sexist and sexual violence”, affirms the new president of the Finance Committee of the National Assembly.
“Nothing ever came out for lack of testimony that could amount to criminal behavior”
According to him, “nothing ever came out for lack of testimony that could amount to criminal behavior, a fortiori criminal likely to have to be publicly denounced”. He still believes that “this rumor was however relaunched from an investigation into sexism at LFI in the newspaper chat in September 2018″, which he describes as “sloppy”.
“The journalist evokes, under the seal of anonymity, two brief testimonies about a deputy also anonymous guilty of gestures and acts described as ‘slippages, bordering on harassment'”, deplores Éric Coquerel. He explains that “the attacks” against him resumed “shortly before the 2022 legislative elections”, “by accounts often created from scratch and especially twitter accounts claiming to be close to the Republican spring or even LaREM. They will also be an attempt to counterbalance to the accusations concerning Damien Abad.
The deputy says he is in solidarity with the #MeToo movement
In this text, Éric Coquerel affirms that he never “wanted to respond directly to these rumors and slanders”, in order not to give them “a multiplied audience” and considering “that there was no matter for (the ) publicly denounce”.
Finally, the LFI deputy expressed his “full solidarity with the #MeToo movement”, and called on society “to preserve itself from sinking into rumors”. According to him, “public questioning should not be possible without a precise, identified, verified report, thus respecting the word of women. Otherwise it is the door open to arbitrariness and the very reactionary ‘there is no there is no smoke without fire'”.
In recent days, the committee against sexual violence of La France insoumise defended the deputy on Thursday against “rumors about his behavior with women”, ensuring that he had never received a report about him. Among these accusations, we find in particular the journalist Rokhaya Diallo, who intervened on the antenna of RTL. “I have heard many times from women talking about the behavior he would have with women. These are things that have come up many times, for years,” she accused.