Former presidential candidate François Asselineau, prosecuted for harassment and sexual assault, obtains dismissal of charges

The decision of the Paris judicial court is, however, the subject of an appeal by the public prosecutor. The UPR president’s lawyer “waits for the investigating chamber to confirm the dropping of all charges against him.”

Four years after two complaints denouncing moral harassment and sexual assault committed by the president of the Popular Republican Union (UPR), François Asselineau, to the detriment of two collaborators, a dismissal of the case was ordered, reported Thursday, December 26 in AFP the Paris prosecutor’s office. The public prosecutor told AFP that it was appealing this decision pronounced by the Paris judicial court.

The two magistrates “who investigated in depth for more than three years into the accusations which had been launched against François Asselineau in 2020 (…) thus rejected all of the seven charges which had been retained against (him) and which included accusations of ‘sexual assault’ and ‘harassment'”reacted to AFP Me Pierre Darkanian, lawyer for the head of the UPR, aged 67. “François Asselineau expresses his satisfaction with this decision” et “reaffirms its serenity in the context of this appeal (from the prosecution) and waits for the investigating chamber to confirm the dropping of all charges against it”specified Mr. Darkanian.

The prosecution had requested on December 14, 2023 that François Asselineau be tried before the criminal court “for attempted aggravated sexual assault and moral harassment at work against two of his colleagues, as well as for acts of intimidation with a view to forcing one of them not to file a complaint”he detailed.

A preliminary investigation was opened on May 15, 2020 to study the complaint filed ten days earlier by “a collaborator within the UPR who claimed to have been harassed upon his hiring in 2019 and to have had kisses imposed on him”recalled the prosecution. A second employee filed a complaint on June 25, 2020 “for similar facts” commis “in 2018”he added. François Asselineau was taken into police custody in February 2021 and subsequently indicted.