After the filing of two complaints for rape, Ms. Zacharopoulou was targeted Friday by a third complaint for violence without incapacity for work by a person responsible for a public service mission, according to the Paris prosecutor’s office.
The complaint was filed Thursday, according to the same source.
The TMC channel collected the testimony of this patient, who says she suffered “gynecological violence” during an appointment in 2018 with Ms. Zacharopoulou to treat her endometriosis, which this 46-year-old Franco-Greek gynecologist has made her specialty. .
On May 27, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation after the filing of two rape complaints against Ms. Zacharopoulou.
According to the weekly Marianne, which revealed the case, the charges were allegedly committed in the context of her profession as a gynecologist.
On Wednesday, a young woman now 26 years old, claiming then to hesitate to file a complaint, told AFP that at the end of 2016 she faced a gynecologist insisting on examining her, who told her: “You’re going to have to open “. A scene experienced “at least as a sexual assault” by this young woman.
Previously requested by AFP, in vain, the Secretary of State finally reacted for the first time on Friday to these attacks.
“The serious accusations against me, relating to medical clinical examinations carried out in order to diagnose and treat the disease of my patients, are unacceptable and revolting”, she declared in a press release sent by her lawyer, Antonin Lévy.
Claiming to have learned of the existence of these complaints through “the press”, Ms. Zacharopoulou said she was “shocked and deeply hurt” as a “woman and doctor”.
Ms. Zacharopoulou still claims to have “never imposed the slightest examination on any of my patients without their consent”. “I care for my patients in a conscientious and dedicated way,” she writes.
Chrysoula Zacharopoulou – elected in 2019 on the Renaissance list in the European Parliament, where she notably sat on the Committee on Women’s Rights – is a doctor who has long been involved in the issue of endometriosis. She had submitted a report on the subject to the French government last year.
Born in Sparta, she studied in Italy before practicing in France, at the Bégin military hospital in Saint-Mandé (Val-de-Marne) then at the Hôpitaux de Paris (AP-HP), notably in Tenon in the service of Pr Emile Daraï, under investigation for accusations of rape.
Ms. Zacharopoulou entered the government at the end of May as Secretary of State for Development, Francophonie and International Partnerships, to the Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs, in the government of Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne.
The latter had assured Thursday evening “that the complaints are filed, justice will do its job”, describing as “important debate” that “of consent when we do examinations”.
Several ministers currently in office are accused of sexual violence, including Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin, the subject of a rape complaint, initially dismissed and then relaunched and for which the prosecution requested a dismissal in early 2022. .
More recently, the Minister of Solidarity Damien Abad was accused of rape. The Paris prosecutor’s office has indicated that it is not opening a preliminary investigation “as is”.
These accusations have sparked criticism and mobilization, particularly within feminist movements.
