A popular French environmentalist and former government minister faced new rape and sexual abuse charges after several women testified in a TV documentary that he had assaulted them.
These allegations were made four years after Nicolas Hulot, 66, was first accused of rape by the granddaughter of the late Socialist President François Mitterrand.
In an interview before the broadcast of the documentary on Thursday, Yu Luo vehemently denied these allegations and accused the women of lying. He said he will completely withdraw from public life.
Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau announced on Friday that a preliminary investigation into these allegations will be launched. Regardless of the outcome of the investigation, such investigations will not lead to any formal allegations because the alleged incident occurred outside the time limit for prosecution.
Four women who were described as not acquainted with each other claimed in the special envoy that they had been attacked by Hu Luo.
In May 1989, when Sylvia, who was only 16 years old, described how Hulot forced her to perform oral sex in a vehicle in an open parking lot, she burst into tears.
“I’m still young, and I’ve never done anything like that. I don’t understand what he wants,” she said.
“I was stunned. I knew what was going on shouldn’t happen. It was bad… I knew I was trapped because I didn’t want to do what he wanted me to do. I tried to lean back in my seat.”
She recalled the last sentence he said to her when he sent her off in Paris: “He said a word that has troubled me for many years, and he said:’Make up again, because people can see you are doing something.’ This That’s all he said to me.
“I left, I don’t know what happened. Did I seduce him? Is it normal? Are adults like this? I have kept myself secret for 30 years. I am a 16-year-old child and he is Nicolas Hulot. Who will Believe me?”
Yu Luo ran as a presidential candidate in 2012 and later served as Minister of Ecological Transition in the first government of Emmanuel Macron from 2017 to 2018.
In 2018, when serving as a minister, a magazine Claim that he raped the daughter of a well-known person, Later revealed to be the granddaughter of the late Socialist President Pascal Mitterrand.A few months later, Yu Luo Suddenly resigned during a radio interview, Citing differences on the government’s environmental policy.
Mitterrand had contact with Envoyé spécial, but did not appear in the documentary. He told the police that Yu Luo raped her in Corsica in 1997 when she was 19 years old and was an intern photographer at SIPA. Its founder is a close friend of Yu Luo.
Since the allegations exceeded the legal time limit, the investigation has ended.
Yu Luo, who was questioned by investigators, admitted that he had had sex with Mitterrand, but said it was voluntary. He started a defamation lawsuit against the magazine, but then dropped the lawsuit.
Another woman with the surname Cecil claimed in the special envoy that Hu Luo attacked her in 1998 when she was 23 years old when she was working at the French Embassy in Moscow. She said that she was sent to help Huluo-he told her he was a friend of the then President Jacques Chirac-and when he arrived in Russia to make a documentary, she settled a problem with customs officials.
Later she said that when she was taking a taxi with Yu Luo, “he jumped on top of me and tried to kiss me”. She said: “I slapped him. I did what I could. My’no’ was very clear. I made it clear that I did not want to have sex with that man.”
When asked if she planned to lodge a complaint with the police, she replied: “In Russia, in Moscow, against President Chirac’s friends. No, I didn’t even think about it. Of course not.”
The third woman, Claire Nouvian, who had worked on a show in Lowe, was warned to avoid being alone with the host and locked her door at night when they were filming on a Costa Rican boat.
She said that two or three people had advised her: “Avoid being alone with him. If you are working, it is in the hotel restaurant, not your room. When you are on the boat, please lock your The cabin. He knocks on your door at night, don’t open the door and pretend to be asleep.” The filming went through smoothly, but she added: “The ecosystem surrounding this character allows this kind of abuse.”
The fourth woman who worked with Hulot but spoke anonymously said that after a production meeting in 2001, he suddenly caught her and “kissed my mouth completely.”
Hulot refused to talk to Envoyé spécial in front of the camera, but told the show on the phone: “You know it will be silent… and today, women’s words are sacred. I have never forced anyone to do it in my life. Anything. Never, no matter if it’s with your hands or with force.”
