PARIS — A deputy mayor of Paris resigned on Monday and prosecutors opened an investigation of him for potential sexual assault, simply weeks after they began an investigation into rape allegations in opposition to a former deputy mayor.
Pierre Aidenbaum, tendered his resignation as deputy mayor on Monday after “potential acts of sexual harassment in opposition to a feminine co-worker” got here to gentle, town council stated in an announcement. It didn’t go into element concerning the allegations, which it stated “have been instantly reported to the Public Prosecutor.”
A short while later, the Paris Public Prosecutor’s workplace introduced that it had opened an investigation of Mr. Aidenbaum, 78, on a cost of sexual assault.
In an announcement despatched by his legal professionals to the information company Agence France-Presse, Mr. Aidenbaum stated that the connection in query “was by no means prison” and requested to be heard “as quickly as potential to indicate his innocence.”
Mayor Anne Hidalgo had appointed Mr. Aidenbaum in July as deputy mayor in command of the Seine river. Although he stepped down from that put up, he didn’t hand over the seat he has held on town council since 1989. A member of the Socialist Celebration, he additionally served because the mayor of Paris’s third arrondissement from 1995 to this yr.
The allegations in opposition to Mr. Aidenbaum add to a sequence of sexual abuse scandals which have rocked Paris Metropolis Corridor in current months, a part of a broader reckoning over intercourse, gender and energy in France that has shaken the cultural and political arenas.
In July, Christophe Girard, a longtime deputy mayor who oversaw cultural affairs within the French capital for 13 years, resigned following protests over his hyperlinks to the pedophile writer Gabriel Matzneff, who had lengthy recognized Mr. Girard as a benefactor and a good friend.
Lower than a month later, in a New York Times article, a 46-year-old French citizen of Tunisian descent stated that starting when he was 16, Mr. Girard coerced him into intercourse about 20 instances throughout a decade-long relationship. Prosecutors opened an investigation into the person’s story, however Mr. Girard, who denied the allegations, has continued to serve on town council.
In August, Paris Metropolis Corridor was fast to take away a plaque honoring Man Hocquenghem that had been broken by feminist activists. Mr. Hocquenghem, who died in 1988, was a French author and queer theorist who had defended pedophilia.
The plaque had been affixed in January by members of town council together with Mr. Girard, who, the month earlier than, in a speech at the city hall, had praised Mr. Hocquenghem’s books on homosexuality and introduced him as “a tireless observer of his time, desirous to denounce injustices.”
This sequence of occasions has put Ms. Hidalgo, 61, a self-proclaimed feminist, below intense stress, pitting her against young members of her own government who’ve made some extent of confronting a robust, entrenched male institution.
“They’re going to want a whole lot of some of these revelations to know how a lot precedence these points and fights have to be given,” stated Alice Coffin, a newly elected metropolis councilor and feminist activist who was on the forefront of the protests in opposition to Mr. Girard.
Daphné Anglès contributed analysis.
