French police on Sunday held a Russian activist and his girlfriend for questioning over sex videos released online that brought down French President Emmanuel Macron’s favored candidate for Paris mayor.
Pyotr Pavlensky has said he leaked the video that forced the centrist ruling party’s Benjamin Griveaux to bow out of the running for mayor in next month’s election.
The artist, who received asylum in France in 2017 after several radical protests in Russia, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a fight at a New Year’s party.
However, on Sunday, police turned their attention to the footage posted online this week showing a man masturbating, coupled with racy text messages sent to a woman.
The videos prompted Griveaux, a married father of three, to abruptly call off his mayoral campaign, a first in France, where politicians have in the past attempted to brush off sex scandals as private matters.
Pavlensky’s French girlfriend, Alexandra de Taddeo, believed to have been the recipient of the videos sent in 2018, has also been arrested on charges of invasion of privacy and publishing images of a sexual nature without consent.
Pavlensky, 35, and De Taddeo, 29, were both being questioned on Sunday at the headquarters of the criminal police in Paris.
On Friday, Pavlensky told reporters that he had posted the footage online to expose the “hypocrisy” of 42-year-old Griveaux and planned to post more material on a newly created “political porn platform.”
Griveaux “is someone who constantly brings up family values, who says he wants to be the mayor of families, and always cites his wife and children as an example, but he is doing the opposite,” Pavlensky told France’s Liberation newspaper.
Griveaux’s lawyer, Richard Malka, hit back on Sunday, accusing “pseudo artists” of giving “morality lessons.”
French media and politicians from across the spectrum have portrayed Griveaux, a former government spokesman, as the victim of a hatchet job.
“Everyone has the right to their secret garden,” French National Assembly Speaker Richard Ferrand told the Journal du Dimanche weekly, echoing a sentiment still widely held nine years after politicians’ morals came under scrutiny in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair.
Griveaux’s fall left Macron’s Republic on the Move (LREM) party scrambling to find a replacement candidate for Paris mayor a month before the vote.
French Minister of Health Agnes Buzyn on Sunday said she would run in Griveaux’s place.
“I’m going for it with the aim of winning,” said Buzyn, who has been leading France’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Macron hailed Buzyn’s “courageous decision” to throw her hat in the ring for the Paris job, his office said.
The president swiftly chose Olivier Veran, a lawmaker and doctor, to replace Buzyn at the health ministry.
Griveaux’s campaign had already been in trouble before the sex tape emerged, dragged down by a rebel candidacy from fellow Macron supporter and star mathematician Cedric Villani.
Recent surveys had placed the official LREM candidate third, behind Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo of the Socialist Party and conservative candidate Rachida Dati.
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
China on Monday announced its first ever sanctions against an individual Japanese lawmaker, targeting China-born Hei Seki for “spreading fallacies” on issues such as Taiwan, Hong Kong and disputed islands, prompting a protest from Tokyo. Beijing has an ongoing spat with Tokyo over islands in the East China Sea claimed by both countries, and considers foreign criticism on sensitive political topics to be acts of interference. Seki, a naturalised Japanese citizen, “spread false information, colluded with Japanese anti-China forces, and wantonly attacked and smeared China”, foreign ministry spokesman Lin Jian told reporters on Monday. “For his own selfish interests, (Seki)
Argentine President Javier Milei on Sunday vowed to “accelerate” his libertarian reforms after a crushing defeat in Buenos Aires provincial elections. The 54-year-old economist has slashed public spending, dismissed tens of thousands of public employees and led a major deregulation drive since taking office in December 2023. He acknowledged his party’s “clear defeat” by the center-left Peronist movement in the elections to the legislature of Buenos Aires province, the country’s economic powerhouse. A deflated-sounding Milei admitted to unspecified “mistakes” which he vowed to “correct,” but said he would not be swayed “one millimeter” from his reform agenda. “We will deepen and accelerate it,” he
Japan yesterday heralded the coming-of-age of Japanese Prince Hisahito with an elaborate ceremony at the Imperial Palace, where a succession crisis is brewing. The nephew of Japanese Emperor Naruhito, Hisahito received a black silk-and-lacquer crown at the ceremony, which marks the beginning of his royal adult life. “Thank you very much for bestowing the crown today at the coming-of-age ceremony,” Hisahito said. “I will fulfill my duties, being aware of my responsibilities as an adult member of the imperial family.” Although the emperor has a daughter — Princess Aiko — the 23-year-old has been sidelined by the royal family’s male-only
RSS