French prosecutors drop medical rape inquiry against minister
Published Apr 4, 2023 01:05 pm
PARIS, France - An inquiry into allegations that a junior minister in France raped patients during gynaecological examinations has been dropped, the Paris prosecutor's office said on Tuesday.
Three women filed complaints in May and June last year against the foreign ministry's state secretary for development Chrysoula Zacharopoulou over alleged "gynaecological violence" when she practised medicine, accusations the 46-year-old has denied.
The case was dropped late last month over the alleged offense being "insufficiently characterised", the prosecutor's office said.
Contacted by AFP, Zacharopoulou's lawyer, Antonin Levy, declined to comment.
The minister in June last year said she was "shocked and deeply hurt" by the allegations, which she denied "forcefully".
A former member of the European Parliament, Greece-born Zacharopoulou was named a junior minister reporting to Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna after President Emmanuel Macron's re-election in April last year.
She gained prominence in the mid-2010s by campaigning for greater public awareness of endometriosis, a condition in which tissue similar to the lining of the uterus grows outside the womb.
In 2021, she compiled a government report into endometriosis.
Members of Macron's government have faced several such allegations.
Solidarities minister Damien Abad was sacked last year following accusations of sexual assault.
The Paris appeals court in January confirmed the dropping of a rape case against Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin, but his accuser said she would keep fighting to have it heard.