Christophe Girard, deputy culture to the mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo (PS), has declared to the Agency France have decided to leave his post and submitted his resignation on Thursday, after attacks, elected officials, environmentalists, following his hearing in march in the investigation " for raping minors ", which refers to Gabriel Matzneff.
" I have 64 years old, a life of healthy family and many commitments, cultural, political and associative, and didn't want to rot my life longer and me to bother to justify myself constantly for something that doesn't exist ", he wrote in a press release. "In the poisonous climate in general (...) where it tramples on our right and the penal Code, and even if the manifestation of this day, against me, has brought together about twenty people, the first of my priorities is that Anne Hidalgo, brilliantly re-elected mayor of Paris, is able to exercise its mandate peacefully," writes Christophe Girard.
The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo " takes note of the resignation ", "applauds the courageous decision" and "it renews all his friendship," according to his entourage being questioned by Agence France-Presse. The elected representative of the 18th arrondissement remains a councillor of Paris, asserts a new time support " more than ever, the fight against discrimination, racism, anti-semitism, misogyny, homophobia, and the misandrie ". It also states to maintain its complaint for defamation.
Read also When the minors 'brigade, watched discreetly Matzneff
" Anne you're serious ? "
For several days, and in a letter addressed to Anne Hidalgo, elected officials, environmentalists, and feminists demanded his suspension for the assistant position and the opening of an internal investigation by the City of Paris, considering that Christophe Girard was to explain his links and actions with Gabriel Matzneff. "Denial to the city hall of Paris ", " Girard Resignation ", " Anne are you serious ? ": armed with placards and slogans, dozens of activists and elected officials protested under the windows of the City hall, where was held the first council of Paris of the backtracking. "It is not enough to have a clean criminal record to be assistant to the city hall of Paris, it is also necessary qualities, ethical and moral, support to Gabriel Matzneff disqualifies Christophe Girard for this kind of responsibility ", was stated during the rally the elected ecologist Raphaëlle Rémy-Leleu.
The investigators have interviewed him in march, Christophe Girard, secretary-general of the House of Yves-Saint Laurent between 1986 and 1987, a structure that has provided financial support to the writer Gabriel Matzneff in the 80's, according to several accounts. The writer is the subject of an investigation for "rape of minors" opened by the prosecutor's office in Paris after the publication in January of the autobiographical novel of Vanessa Springora in which she describes the relationship under the influence, that she spoke, when she was a minor, with the writer.
" Three years after #MeToo, after the public discussion caused by the publication of The Consent of Vanessa Springora, a few months after the terrible ceremony of César, a few days after the appointment of a minister which is the subject of an instruction for rape and sexual harassment, the Mayor of Paris can not, must not take a hostile stance to feminist demands. It is our consistent policy, " write the elected environmentalists.
