PARIS — A French court on Friday found former senator Joel Guerriau guilty of drugging a woman lawmaker with MDMA with the intent to sexually assault her, sentencing the 68-year-old to four years in prison, with 18 months to be served behind bars.
The ruling followed a high-profile trial that began Monday and centered on Guerriau’s conduct during a November 2023 meeting at his Paris apartment with National Assembly member Sandrine Josso. Prosecutors said the veteran politician spiked Josso’s champagne with the synthetic drug commonly known as ecstasy. Toxicology tests later showed a high dose of MDMA in her blood, and police found ecstasy at Guerriau’s home.
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Josso said after the verdict it was a “huge relief.” In court, she described visiting Guerriau to celebrate his re-election and being the only guest at his apartment. She testified that the champagne he poured “tasted sweet and sticky,” and that he pressed her to toast again. Soon after, she said, her heart raced and she felt so unwell she left hurriedly for a hospital.
Her lawyer, Arnaud Godefroy, told the court that Josso has grappled with lasting effects: six months off work, medical treatment, psychiatric follow-up, nightmares, flashbacks and dissociation. She said stress from the episode led her to grind her teeth so severely she needed four teeth removed.
Guerriau, who had served in the Senate since 2011, resigned from the upper house in October and was expelled from the center-right Horizons party shortly thereafter. He denied any sexual intent and characterized the drugging as an accident. He told the court he had poured powdered ecstasy into a glass the day before to calm a panic attack but changed his mind and returned the glass to the cupboard. “In short, I am an idiot,” he said.
Prosecutor Benjamin Coulon argued the evidence showed Guerriau “deliberately placed” MDMA in Josso’s drink. He sought a five-year ban from public office and for Guerriau to be added to the sex offenders’ register, highlighting that the ex-senator had himself voted for the law creating the offense of administering a harmful substance with intent to commit rape or sexual assault. While acknowledging Guerriau’s lack of a criminal record and public service, Coulon said the former lawmaker was duty-bound to set an example. “He did administer drugs to her with the aim of raping her,” the prosecutor said, adding pointedly: if not, was it “to steal her wallet?”
Defense attorney Henri Carpentier urged the court to resist outrage, saying that when the case surfaced, “the emotion was unanimous, the disgust legitimate,” but “emotion is a bad adviser, it erases all nuance.”
The case arrives amid heightened scrutiny in France of drug-facilitated sexual violence. It comes months after Dominique Pelicot was sentenced to 20 years in prison for repeatedly drugging his then-wife so he and strangers could rape her — a separate case that shocked the country. France last year adopted the principle of consent into the legal definition of rape, aligning with moves in several other European nations.
Prosecutors had requested a four-year prison term for Guerriau. The court’s decision, including 18 months to be served in custody, marks a rare conviction of a senior political figure for drugging with intent to sexually assault, reinforcing a legal standard that prosecutors said the former lawmaker helped enact and was obligated to uphold.
By Abdiwahab Ahmed
Axadle Times international–Monitoring.
