French MP denies sexual harassment claims
A French lawmaker on Thursday denied accusations he had sexually harassed 13 women, describing some of the alleged incidents as mere "games of seduction".
Ecologist lawmaker Denis Baupin was forced to step down as deputy speaker of parliament after the allegations emerged in early May, triggering an outpouring of anger over often inappropriate behaviour by male politicians.
"I maintain that I have never committed sexual harassment or sexual abuse in my whole life," Baupin said in an interview with L'Obs news weekly.
He suggested the women accusing him may have had political motivations.
"I am not the DSK of the Greens," Baupin said, referring to former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn whose career imploded over accusations of sexual assault which were eventually settled in a civil suit.
Initially eight woman accused Baupin of harassment, but a French investigation into the charges has turned up 13 accusers, with some of the alleged crimes dating back to the nineties.
The statute of limitations on sexual harassment charges is three years in France.
One of Baupin's accusers, a spokeswoman for his ecologist EELV party, said he made an aggressive pass at her in October 2011 outside a party meeting.
"Denis Baupin appeared in the corridor outside... He pinned me against the wall with his chest and tried to kiss me. I pushed him away vigorously," Sandrine Rousseau alleged.
Baupin said it was impossible to prove this did not happen but that the charge was riddled with "improbabilities".
A female lawmaker, Isabelle Attard, said she received near-daily lewd text messages from Baupin.
Baupin said the messages were merely compliments and an attempt at seduction.
"They were games of seduction," he said.
A spokeswoman for feminist group Osez le Feminisme told AFP that Baupin's response was typical of a man who thinks his actions can be excused as bumbling or over-eager flirting.
"It is what we say about a man who can't take 'no' for an answer. And not being able to hear 'no' to sexual advances is already an act of harassment," said the spokeswoman Marie Allibert.