DAMIEN ABAD. The Minister of Solidarity is the subject of three charges of sexual assault. A complaint was even filed by one of the women. The Päris public prosecutor’s office then opened a preliminary investigation for attempted rape. Will Damien Abad be able to stay in government?
[Mis à jour le 1er juillet 2022 à 18h21] The situation in the government of Damien Abad is increasingly fragile. The Minister of Solidarity is now targeted by a preliminary investigation by the Paris prosecutor’s office, after the filing of a complaint for attempted rape, Monday, June 27. The latter immediately denied these “false and scandalous accusations” and announced that he was going to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation. For a month, the future within the executive of the former deputy LR has been questioned. Several testimonies were relayed by the investigative newspaper Médiapart. In all, these are three women who incriminate Damien Abad of rape or sexual assault. He has been supported so far by Elisabeth Borne, but the opening of this preliminary investigation could well spell the end for the Minister of Solidarity. Especially since the Prime Minister must soon announce the new composition of her government. This time, Damien Abad is clearly questioned, including inside his camp…
After having won the legislative elections in his constituency of Ain, Damien Abad had therefore been maintained at the end of the ballot, to the greatest regret of a walker who confided in the newspaper Le Parisien: “Everyone everyone would have preferred it to end quickly, but since no political decision has been taken…” As a symbol, another LREM deputy was moved by the situation with the newspaper, without revealing his identity: “No element of language was sent. There is no line, but there never was!” The report is scathing, 24 hours after the opening of the investigation against Damien Abad, the executive is sailing on sight. For many political figures and observers, the minister should not keep his place. Some even bring out the sentence, heavy with meaning today, declared by Élisabeth Borne when the first testimonies against Damien Abad were released: “If there are new elements, if justice is again seized, we will draw all the consequences of this decision.” For the lawyers of the person concerned, “the opening of a preliminary investigation is non-information, since everyone knows that any complaint registered is systematically followed by the opening of a preliminary investigation”. Everyone advances their pawns, willy-nilly…
With the newspaper Le Parisien, a walker was moved by the situation that Damien Abad is going through, and the immobility that results from this affair: “It’s as if we had no minister. There is an impediment total! As soon as he gives an interview, the first question will be on this, and the last too. The slightest trip will be heckled. It’s untenable to imagine that he can answer the slightest question to the government… “D he other members of the majority believe that the Minister of Solidarity has “become a political inconvenience”.
The entourage of the Prime Minister does not commit much more. “It is important that the plaintiffs go to court, which is the only one who can establish the truth in this case impartially and with respect for their word,” he recalls. However, not everyone is categorical within LREM to dismiss Damien Abad. Thus, Le Parisien recalls the words of a pillar of the majority before the legislative elections: “Of course we are annoyed, but are we going to start cutting off heads on the pretext that accusations are made in the press? ?”
At the announcement of the opening of an investigation for attempted rape, Wednesday, June 29, against Damien Abad, several members of the opposition asked, again, the resignation of the Minister of Solidarity. Raphaëlle Rémy-Leleu, councilor of Paris and feminist activist, thus declared on the set of BFM TV: “I demand the resignation of Damien Abad.” Earlier, on June 20, several activists had published a column in Le Monde calling on Damien Abad, and more generally all those concerned with cases of sexual violence, to resign: “We, women from all professional backgrounds, from all sides politicians, demand the immediate resignation of Damien Abad and anyone implicated in sexual violence with a political mandate.”
For the moment, Damien Abad owes his maintenance to two titles: his rallying after the re-election of Emmanuel Macron and his re-election in the legislative elections. Indeed, the outgoing MP for the 5th constituency of Ain obtained a comfortable score of 57.86% of the vote. Emmanuel Macron had warned his ministers. In case of defeat, they should leave the government. His victory therefore assured him of keeping his place in the executive… for the moment! Thus, the President of the Republic entrusted the heavy task to Elisabeth Borne of forming a new government. It remains to be seen whether the victory in the legislative elections and its importance within the traditional right will take precedence over the cases involving it…
Damien Abad, from LR deputy to Minister of Solidarity
Damien Abad was appointed Minister of Solidarity, Autonomy and People with Disabilities by Emmanuel Macron on May 20, 2022. This appointment is the result of a process of several weeks, discussions between the deputy and Thierry Solère, political adviser to 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 old divisions, but to the gathering of all those who wish to advance our country”.
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.