More than 240 women accuse Christian Nègre, a former senior official in the Culture Ministry, of secretly drugging them with diuretics during job interviews, then deliberately placing them in situations where they would be forced to urinate in public or on themselves.
A French woman who was allegedly drugged by a diuretic by a former senior official in the Culture Ministry during a job interview has decried the slow pace of the justice system, saying, "It prolongs the trauma."
Ten years after her alleged assault, Sylvie Delezenne is now speaking out about her ordeal in a bid to "make things change".
She says she met former ministry official Christian Nègre for an interview for a post at the Culture Ministry in 2015. She travelled from Lille to Paris to attend the interview, with high hopes, saying the position was a perfect fit for her profile and calling it "my dream job".
"I was in a very precarious situation. My unemployment benefits were about to run out, and I knew I was going to end up on welfare," she told public broadcaster Franceinfo.
"I was actively looking for work and networking on LinkedIn. When this senior official from the Ministry of Culture contacted me, with a profile perfectly aligned with my background in communication and marketing, I saw it as a real opportunity."
Delezenne told the broadcaster that the job interview, which began in an office, started well. She accepted a cup of coffee from Nègre and when she had finished it, he suggested they take a walk and finish the interview outside.
Job talk takes a nasty turn
"I felt an unusual urge to urinate (which) became increasingly urgent. My heart started racing, I was trembling, sweating, and felt like my body was swelling," she said in the interview on Tuesday.
Unable to hold it any longer, Delezenne said she was forced to urinate in a tunnel leading to one of the bridges over the River Seine. She described that as painful and embarrassing, particularly when Nègre covered her with his coat.
They both went back to the ministry building, and at that point she realised the "interview" had lasted more than four hours.
Still, she put the episode down to stress, blamed herself and did not think about it again until 2019.
"I received a letter from the Paris judicial police. They asked me to come and testify. At the police station, they first let me recount ‘my interview’ as I experienced it and I wondered why the police were interested in it," she explained.
"Then, the investigator returned with a huge binder and began to read: the supposed time of the administration of the diuretic product, the quantity, the route taken, the moment I asked for a break, the meeting with colleagues, then the description of the scene under the footbridge, down to the detail of the colour of my panties and even photos of my legs taken under her desk."
Delezenne now finds herself at the centre of a criminal investigation and is one of more than 240 women who claim they were drugged by Nègre over a nine-year period with a potent and illegal diuretic.
Nègre and his "experiments"
The alleged assaults first came to the attention of the police in 2018 after a colleague reported Nègre for allegedly trying to photograph the legs of a senior official.
That prompted police to launch an investigation and officers found a spreadsheet called "Experiments" on his computer in which he had recorded the times of the alleged druggings and the women’s reactions.
By 2019, he was under formal investigation and had been removed from both the Culture Ministry and the civil service.
He is being investigated on charges ranging from drugging to sexual assault and faces a sentence of up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000. Yet six years later, the trial is yet to begin.
Drug-induced sexual assault involves covertly administering a psychoactive substance such as a diuretic or sedative to a person without their knowledge, to reduce their control over their actions in order to commit rape or sexual assault.
In France it is known as "chemical submission," a term that became widely known across the country last year when Gisèle Pelicot waived her right to anonymity in the trial of dozens of men who raped her after she had been drugged into unconsciousness by her ex-husband.
While the Pelicot case gripped France, many of the women allegedly assaulted by Christian Nègre have complained that their trauma is continuing because of the length of time it is taking for their case to come to trial.
Sylvie Delezenne told Franceinfo her professional life was left in tatters after her experience, saying she stopped applying for jobs and lived on welfare and loans. She also experienced cognitive difficulties and needed speech therapy.
At the bottom of the victim hierarchy
She also describes her position as a victim as being in a "grey area".
"I wasn't raped, he didn't 'touch' me in the way it's usually understood. So I find myself at the very bottom of the 'victim hierarchy,' as if what I went through were less serious," she said.
"Yet, my body was used for sexual purposes, without my consent, in a context of total domination. I was tricked with a drug, my dignity, my health, my social standing were played with."
"The consequences are very real: post-traumatic stress, financial insecurity, isolation, and the constant fear of the moment when justice will — or won't — finally deliver its verdict."
While the case rumbles on and, for the time being, justice continues to elude many of Nègre's alleged victims, Delezenne is angry that her abuser has been able to continue with his life, reportedly finding work as a teacher in a private school under a new name.
"There's a kind of code of silence surrounding the fact that a senior official could have acted this way for years. I sometimes feel like they're taking me for a fool, that they're downplaying what happened."
"It gives the impression that in France, you can have 240 victims in a ministry of the Republic and continue living your life peacefully. You can't treat this as just another news item."