DAMIEN ABAD. Targeted by complaints of rape and a preliminary investigation, Damien Abad is no longer Minister of Solidarity. Dismissed from the government on July 4, the politician again denounces the accusations against him.
[Mis à jour le 5 juillet 2022 à 14h11] He is the only one to have been thanked by the government. A little over a month after his appointment, Damien Abad has not been reappointed to the Ministry of Solidarity. The reasons for the eviction of the deputy are known, complaints and accusations of rape and attempted rape, and his departure could serve as an example, according to the words of Elisabeth Borne on July 5, 2022. In an extract from a interview given to She, the Prime Minister invokes the “duty of exemplarity of political leaders”. A criterion that the minister failed to achieve. The accusations against Damien Abad have agitated and weakened the government to the point where the former member of the government was described as a “political inconvenience”. The majority seems to be in agreement with the decision to dispense with the deputy for Ain who, according to Olivier Véran on France Inter this July 5, was prevented by the weight of complaints: “He could no longer work in peaceful conditions. He would have set foot in the hemicycle and could not have expressed himself”.
This forced departure, Damien Abad saw it with “great regret”. “I will not have been given the time but until the end I fully assumed my function as minister with no less than six trips in a fortnight”, he declared during the transfer of power with his successor. , Jean-Christophe Combe, July 4. Not failing in passing to denounce once again the accusations against him as “despicable slanders” which are part of a “disastrous movement which relegates the presumption of innocence to the rank of old fashioned”. And to insist: “Everyone should measure the incredible violence for a human being, for a family, for loved ones of such cleverly orchestrated practices and too often relayed without media discernment.”
Damien Abad dismissed as Minister of Solidarity
Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad has not been since July 4, 2022. The politician spent just over a month in government and his entire mandate was rocked by a series of accusations of rape, complaints and more recently the opening of a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office. The questioning of the deputy questioned his maintenance within the ministerial team even before the reshuffle but it was the appointment of the new government which formalized the exit of Damien Abad from the executive. The former minister is the only one whose government separated during the reshuffle, the departure of the three other ministers having been announced since mid-June and their defeat in the legislative elections.
Although he publicly indicated his regret at leaving the government, Damien Abad thanked Emmanuel Macron for the trust he placed in him last May: “I would like to warmly thank the President of the Republic for the trust he placed in me. testified from the beginning. I spoke to him again at length yesterday. He seemed preferable, in the face of the despicable slanders of which I am the target, orchestrated in a well-chosen calendar […] that I can defend myself without hindering the action of the government.”
Damien Abad had won his stay at the Ministry of Solidarity on June 19 when he won the legislative elections in the 5th district of Ain. The victory was the guarantee of the minister’s legitimacy to remain in government, but it was without counting on the heavy accusations which weigh on him. While he had presented the voters’ vote as “the only justice of the peace” with the second round of legislative elections, Damien Abad did not succeed despite his re-election to keep his place in government. However, the outgoing deputy won the right to sit again in the National Assembly with a comfortable score of 57.86% of the vote.
Damien Abad, from LR deputy to Renaissance deputy
Damien Abad was appointed Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and People with Disabilities by Emmanuel Macron on May 20, 2022. This appointment was the result of a process of several weeks, discussions between the deputy and Thierry Solère, political adviser of the head of state, known for recruiting new supporters on the right, having started only a few days after the re-election of the head of state according to Le Figaro. Low masses that have no more to the Republicans. This is sUnder pressure from many of them that Damien Abad finally announced that he was leaving the presidency of the LR group in the National Assembly and that he was going “on leave” from his party on May 19, less than 24 hours of his appointment to the government.
Damien Abad explained it again in the columns of Figaro : “I decide today to leave my function as president of the LR group in the Assembly for the sake of clarity, consistency and responsibility”, he assured. “I remain a right-wing man, but I no longer recognize myself in LR’s approach”, explained Damien Abad in particular, affirming that “faced with the populist danger, [il] don’t believe[yait] not to the old divisions, but to the gathering of all those who wish to move our country forward”. From now on, after his ousting from the government on Monday July 4, Damien Abad returns to the Antional Assembly after his ousting from the Borne 2 government. He will sit on the within the Renaissance group (formerly LREM).
What is Damien Abad’s disability?
Damien Abad suffers from a rare congenital disease called “arthrogryposis”. This disease, known as “fetal immobility syndrome”, causes neurological abnormalities even before birth and manifests itself in a series of muscular problems in the four limbs. The consequences can also be skeletal or visceral. If birth mortality is high, a patient’s lifespan can then be normal, but often with severe handicaps.
Damien Abad is the first elected representative of the Fifth Republic to bear such a visible disability and is, in this sense, one of the rare personalities to embody the inclusion of people with physical disabilities in the political world in France. The minister rarely speaks on this subject. We have to go back to an interview from January 2020 at the Parisian to see Damien Abad talk about his illness: “I have always made sure that it is neither a brake nor a driving force in politics”, he said then. “The very first time you come to a market, to distribute leaflets, that’s when it’s the most difficult.”
In May, Damien Abad returned to his disability to defend himself against rape charges against him. “In my position, the sexual act can only occur with the assistance and benevolence of my partner. […] In addition, I am unable to carry a person, transport them and undress them,” he explained.
Damien Abad was therefore until now LR deputy for Ain and president of the Les Républicains group in the National Assembly. Born April 5, 1980 in Nîmes, he comes from a family that fled Franco’s Spain during the 1930s and 1940s. The name Abad is also of Languedoc and Catalan origin. Damien Abad follows a brilliant schooling, despite his disability linked to a neurological disease, arthrogryposis (read below). He graduated from Sciences Po Bordeaux and graduated from Sciences Po Paris in the 2000s, where he became a lecturer. However, he will not succeed in integrating the ENA, failing twice in the Grand oral of the school of administration.
Young, Damien Abad approaches politics very early, working for centrist groups in the National Assembly on budgetary and tax issues. He will be a candidate in the 2007 legislative elections in the Yvelines, but will obtain less than 5% of the votes in the first round. Founder of the “Young Centrists” in 2008, he became Deputy Secretary General of the New Center two years later. Damien Abad then seeks a territory as a base and is successively elected municipal councilor of Vauvert (Gard), European deputy in the South-East constituency thanks to an alliance UMP-NC in 2009, then regional councilor of Rhône- Alps and finally departmental councilor of Ain, finally finding a department of adoption and a new party: the UMP. During the 2012 legislative elections, he was elected deputy in the newly created 5th constituency of Ain. He was re-elected in 2017 with 35% of the vote in the first round and 67% in the second, against a candidate from the Republic in March.
Damien Abad is known to have been one of the youngest elected members of the European Parliament, the youngest of French MEPs. He will also be one of the six youngest deputies in France to the National Assembly. Supporter of Bruno Le Maire for the primary of the right in 2016 and nevertheless faithful to François Fillon during the 2017 campaign, he will be vice-president of the Republicans for a time after having supported Laurent Wauquiez for the leadership of the party. He had supported Xavier Bertrand ahead of the 2022 presidential election and had since appeared in favor of a rapprochement with LREM.