Eric Coquerel, the Chairman of the highly-coveted Finance Committee of National Assembly was elected on Thursday, June 30.
The LFI deputy for Seine-Saint-Denis' first constituency, at 63, is a tireless defender for "working-class neighborhoods" as well as a promoter of Jean-Luc Melenchon's fight against Islamophobia. However, rumors have circulated for many years on social media about his "behaviours with women". Rokhaya Diallo, journalist and feminist, relayed rumors Thursday at the microphone on RTL.
Saturday evening saw the politician counterattack with an online column in the Journal du Dimanche.
He explained that he has never used violence or psychological coercion in order to get a report.
He found a "visibly sloppy article" that implicated him in a December 2018 issue of "Causette", where one anonymous witness incriminating him said it was "not an attack".
He also noted that no public testimony or results of serious journalistic investigations had been published in the past five years. "Our society must transform itself, while not falling into rumour. Public questioning should be prohibited without a detailed, identifiable, and verified report. This respects the voice of women. It could lead to arbitrariness or the reactionary. There is no smoke without fire," he said, a passionate supporter of the movement.
