On April 24th 2021 a female councillor publicly accused French journalist and polemicist Éric Zemmour of having forcibly kissed her. Mediapart has gathered the accounts of several other women who have also condemned the actions and behaviour of the journalist from Le Figaro newspaper and CNews news channel, whom some on the far-right want to be a candidate in next year's presidential election in France. When approached by Mediapart, Zemmour declined to respond to the allegations. Lénaïg Bredoux, David Perrotin and Marine Turchi report.
Official figures show the number of complaints lodged alleging sexual assault and harassment have jumped by almost a third year-on-year in France in the wake of widely reported allegations of sex crimes in the worlds of cinema, politics and the media, notably the accusations levelled at Hollywood film producer Harvey Weinstein.
