A former French senator has gone on trial in Paris accused of drugging a fellow politician in order to sexually assault her, in a case that has shaken French politics.
Joël Guerriau, 68, was a centrist senator for Loire-Atlantique in the west of France in November 2023 when he is accused of spiking a glass of champagne with MDMA and serving it to Sandrine Josso, a centrist member of parliament.
Josso, 50, has said she had heart palpitations, nausea and struggled to stand upright, but managed to flee his apartment.
Guerriau, who quit the senate in October last year, is charged with the use and possession of drugs, and with secretly administering a discernment-altering substance to commit a rape or sexual assault. He denies any intention to commit rape or sexual assault. His lawyer has previously said he served the drink by accident.
Josso, a member of parliament for the centrist MoDem party in the national assembly, has since become a major figure in France’s fight against drug-related sexual assault. She helped to lead a parliamentary investigation into drug-related sexual crimes and co-authored a parliamentary report about drug-facilitated sexual abuse.
She also joined the campaign group to raise awareness on drug-facilitated abuse that was set up by Caroline Darian, the daughter of Gisèle Pelicot, who in 2024 became an international hero after waiving her right to anonymity in a trial of dozens of men convicted of raping her after she was drugged by her then husband.
Josso described how Guerriau, who she had known for years and considered a friend, had invited her to celebrate his re-election to the senate. They were supposed to meet at a restaurant but instead the location changed to his home. She said she expected others to be there, but he was alone when she arrived.
She told RTL radio on Monday she thought his behaviour was bizarre; she accepted a drink, but he kept wanting to make a toast so she could drink more.
She said: “I felt the champagne had a distinct taste, but I was a bit tired after the working day. He said to me: ‘You’re barely drinking,’ which was irritating because I didn’t see why he’d make me drink. He went into the kitchen with the glasses – I looked and saw there was a sachet beside the glasses. I thought: what is that? I had extreme palpitations and nausea.”
Josso has said she felt she was going to have a cardiac arrest. She described managing to use an app on her phone to order a taxi to the national assembly and “summoning the last of my strength and survival instinct” to leave the apartment. She was helped by the taxi driver and parliamentary colleagues who met her and called paramedics. She then called the leader of the lower house of parliament, Yaël Braun-Pivet, who helped her to file a police complaint.
The court is expected to hear details of Guerriau’s internet search history in the days before the alleged incident.
Drugging a person to commit rape or sexual assault is punishable by up to five years in prison. Guerriau also faces up to 10 years in prison for drug possession.
