A 23-year-old man has been charged* and remanded in custody after an American tourist was raped in a public toilet in the centre of Paris, in a case that has caused shock in the busy riverside area that was considered safe, reports The Guardian.
The woman, 27, was out with her partner on Saturday night by the River Seine in the heart of Paris’s tourist district, not far from Notre Dame Cathedral and Paris’s city hall.
The riverside promenade is the focal point for Paris’s Right Bank summer event, Paris Plages, and is busy both during the day and at night, with tourists and Parisians out for a drink in the evening or picnicking by the river.
Shortly after 1am, the woman stopped to use a public toilet near the Louis-Philippe bridge in the fourth arrondissement.
Read more of this report from The Guardian.
* Editor's note: Under a change to the French legal system introduced in 1993, a magistrate can decide ia suspect should be 'placed under investigation' (mis en examen), which is a status one step short of being charged (inculpé), if there is 'serious or concordant' evidence that they committed a crime. Some English-language media describe this status, peculiar to French criminal law, as that of being charged. In fact, it is only at the end of an investigation that a decision can be made to bring charges, in which case the accused is automatically sent for trial.