culture minister ‘spiked’ drinks to humiliate women

culture minister ‘spiked’ drinks to humiliate women | Daily Tribune

PARIS, France (AFP) — Hiyam Zarouri was delighted when a senior civil servant at France’s prestigious culture ministry reached out to her on Linkedin offering the then jobless 25-year-old career advice.

But instead she left their meeting in pain feeling utterly humiliated.

She claims Christian Negre slipped a powerful diuretic into her coffee to make her urinate, then took her on a three-and-a-half-hour walk in central Paris in high heels.

“I started to have cold sweats, chills and hot flashes, a bloated stomach, and my feet really, really hurt,” Zarouri, now 35, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

“I thought I was going to die.”

Zarouri is one of around 200 women to have accused Negre, a former human resources manager, of having spiked their hot drinks to belittle them.

They say he watched his female interviewees writhe in pain, some to the point of relieving themselves in front of him.

Unlike other women who accuse him, Zarouri eventually did manage to insist they return to the ministry — where he had said she should leave her bag — so she could go to the toilet.

When she came out, he was waiting just outside. She said she blamed herself for drinking the coffee and wearing heels.

“I told myself it was my fault,” she said.

It was not until the media reported on similar cases four years later that she understood.

‘Unacceptable’

Negre was eventually charged with “administering a harmful substance” to the women without their knowledge, “sexual assault” by a person abusing their authority and “invasion of privacy.”

Investigators have since discovered that between 2009 and 2018 he preyed on 197 women job-seekers of all ages, whose names and reactions to the drug he listed in a spreadsheet, a source close to the case told AFP on condition of anonymity.

But many victims, including Zarouri, feel the probe is taking too long, and worry that Negre — who is under judicial control but can still work — could still target someone else.

“It’s unacceptable,” she told AFP.

“He needs to be kept away from other women.”

Negre in 2018 admitted to investigators he had “imposed humiliating situations on women” during job interviews. The ministry fired him the following year.

Regional newspaper Ouest France reported in October that he had spent two years working as a teacher at a business school in Normandy under a pseudonym.