Already prosecuted for sexual violence, former Secretary of State Jean-Vincent Placé was charged on Friday, September 6, with sexually assaulting a second woman in the judicial investigation that has been underway against him in Paris since March 2022, Agence France-Presse (AFP) learned from a source close to the matter.
The latter, aged 56, is suspected of having sexually assaulted a woman during the first quarter of 2017 in Seoul, South Korea. The lawyer for this second plaintiff, M.my Tewfik Bouzenoune declined to comment. Mr Placé’s lawyer, M.my Jade Dousselin could not immediately be reached.
This accusation follows a first charge against Placé, who is already on trial for sexual assault and sexual harassment by a person who abused the authority conferred upon him by his position, against a former colleague.
The latter, who succeeded him from the Senate to the Secretary of State for Reform and Simplification (2016-2017), filed a complaint in November 2021, accusing the former elected environmentalist of acts of sexual harassment between 2012 and 2016. In his complaint, some of the reported acts also constituted sexual assault.
So, he said that Mr. Placé had told him “touched the buttocks” in August 2015 in a nightclub in Lille, on the sidelines of the summer meeting of Europe Ecologie-Les Verts (EELV, now Les Ecologistes). He also accused the former member of the Hollande government of having “deliberately touched” her chest during an official car trip to Seoul in May 2016.
These accusations led to the opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office, which then entrusted the investigation to an investigating judge.
