Prosecutors want rape case dropped against French Interior Minister

French prosecutors said on Thursday they have asked for a rape case against Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin to be dropped, almost five years after his accuser first came forward.

Published: 13 January 2022 14:29 CET

French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin delivers a speech. The French Interior Minister was accused of rape in 2017, but prosecutors want the case dropped. (Photo by Daniel Cole / AFP)

In 2017, a woman accused Darmanin, a right-wing stalwart of President Emmanuel Macron’s government, of rape, sexual harassment and abuse of power dating back to 2009.

She says he raped her after she sought his help to have a criminal record expunged while he was a legal affairs adviser with the UMP, the predecessor of France’s main right-wing party, the Republicans.

Ordered by an appeals court to reopen the case in 2020 after dropping it a first time in 2018, Paris prosecutors interviewed Darmanin alongside the woman for nine hours in March last year.

But he was questioned as a witness, not as a formal suspect, and has always maintained he was “wrongfully accused”.

Paris prosecutors told AFP that they on Wednesday have asked for the case to be abandoned.

It will now be up to an investigating magistrate to decide whether to again throw the case out.

Darmanin’s lawyers told AFP they had “taken note” of the prosecutors’ request, while neither the woman nor her lawyer were immediately available for comment.

Macron’s decision to appoint Darmanin interior minister in 2020 enraged feminists, coming weeks after the order to reopen the rape case and at the height of a wave of sexual assault allegations sparked by the #MeToo movement.

The high-flying politician, 39, is one of the key right-wing figures in the centrist Macron’s cabinet, brandishing tough rhetoric on issues including immigration, French identity and the current rocky relations with the UK.

He is expected to play a major role in a campaign by Macron to seek re-election later this year against a field of rivals so far dominated by figures on the right.

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France has in recent weeks been shaken by a series of attacks on schoolchildren by their peers, in particularly the fatal beating earlier this month of Shemseddine, 15, outside Paris.

The far-right Rassemblement National (RN) party has accused Attal of not doing enough on security as the anti-immigration party soars ahead of the government coalition in polls for the June 9th election.

Speaking in Viry-Chatillon, the town where Shemseddine was killed, Attal condemned the “addiction of some of our adolescents to violence”, calling for “a real surge of authority… to curb violence”.

“There are twice as many adolescents involved in assault cases, four times more in drug trafficking, and seven times more in armed robberies than in the general population,” he said.

Measures will include expanding compulsory school attendance to all the days of the week from 8am to 6pm for children of collège age (11 to 15).

“In the day the place to be is at school, to work and to learn,” said Attal, who was also marking 100 days in office since being appointed in January by President Emmanuel Macron to turn round the government’s fortunes.

Parents needed to take more responsibility, said Attal, warning that particularly disruptive children would have sanctions marked on their final grades.

OPINION: No, France is not suffering an unprecedented wave of violence

Promoting an old-fashioned back-to-basics approach to school authority, he said “You break something – you repair it. You make a mess – you clear it up. And if you disobey – we teach you respect.”

Attal also floated the possibility of children in exceptional cases being denied the right to special treatment on account of their minority in legal cases.

Thus 16-year-olds could be forced to immediately appear in court after violations “like adults”, he said. In France, the age of majority is 18, in accordance with the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Macron and Attal face an uphill struggle to reverse the tide ahead of the European elections. Current polls point to the risk of a major debacle that would overshadow the rest of the president’s second mandate up to 2027.

A poll this week by Ifop-Fiducial showed the RN on 32.5 percent with the government coalition way behind on 18 percent.