A French senator has been arrested and questioned by police on suspicion of drugging a member of parliament with the intent to rape or sexually assault her.
Joël Guerriau, 66, a centre-right politician of Les Indépendants, was arrested this week at his Paris home, which was searched along with his office.
The French prosecutor’s office told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Guerriau, a senator for Loire-Atlantique, was being questioned over “administering to a person, against their knowledge, a substance that could alter their discernment or the control of their actions in order to commit a rape or sexual assault”.
AFP reported that the woman who filed the police complaint was a member of the lower house of parliament, the Assemblée Nationale, but she has not been named and the prosecutor’s office has not given any information about her.
Guerriau, a banker, was elected to the senate in 2011 and is vice-president of its foreign affairs, defence and armed forces commission.
Drai expressed his anger that elements of the inquiry had appeared in the French media, and said he would give “no information” on the case “out of respect” for his client and the woman who filed the complaint.
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