France's former President to be investigated over sexual assault allegations

An investigation into the sexual assault allegations over former French President Valéry Giscard d’Estaing has been opened, the public prosecutor’s office in Paris said on May 11. The probe involves a German journalist’s claims that the 94-year-old former head of France sexually assaulted her in 2018 during an interview. According to an international media agency, the journalist had stressed that Giscard grabbed her from behind thrice, while she tried to push him away. 

Moreover, the German media organisation for which the journalist had taken the interview two years ago had previously said, “we cannot tolerate our employees being confronted with such situations.” On the other hand, according to Ex-President of France’s lawyer Jean-Marc Fedida, Giscard “retains no memory” of the incident now surrounded in an investigation. He was the President of the country from 1974 to 1981. The legal complaint against Giscard was filed by the German journalist in March with public prosecutors in Paris. 

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Sexual assault allegations on Joe Biden

Apart from the allegations of sexual misconduct on former French President, the only Democratic nominee for Presidential bid in the United States Joe Biden has also been battling sexual assault allegations. A former staff member when Joe Biden was a senator, Tara Reade has accused the former US VP of sexual assault and reportedly filed a complaint with Washington DC police. However, the police officials have registered the complaint to “inactive” cases. Biden has entirely denied the allegation and has reportedly said that “it never, never happened”. In a separate interview, Biden also said he doesn’t know “why after 27 years all of this gets raised”. 

Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump has advised former Vice President Joe Biden to “just fight” the accusations of sexually assaulting a woman in 1993.  In the belief that he himself has been a “total victim of this nonsense false accusations”, Trump said these issues are just “one of those things” that has to be acknowledged and “get in front of it”.However, the US President goes on to say in a radio interview that “it’s his problem” and added, “if it’s not true, you deny it”. 

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(With AP inputs)

(Image Source: AP)