French senator held for allegedly spiking MP’s drink

PARIS: French investigators on Friday were questioning a senator arres­ted on suspicion of drugging a lower house MP with a view to assaulting her, in a case that has rocked France’s parliament.

Joel Guerriau, a centrist senator from western France, was arrested on Thursday after the alleged attempted assault against MP Sandrine Josso, a source familiar with the case said.

He was being held on suspicion of “administering to a person without their knowledge a substance, likely to diminish their judgement or self-control, to commit a rape or sexual assault,” prosecutors said Thursday.

Josso felt ill after accepting a drink on Tuesday night at the 66-year-old senator’s Paris home. The Senate is the upper house of the French parliament.

Prosecutors said the two were not in an intimate relationship. Tests revealed she had ecstasy in her system, investigators added, prompting her to file the criminal complaint.

“The initial information that I have suggests that it was ecstasy,” Paris prosecutor Laure Beccuau told broadcaster RTL on Friday. Guerriau was arrested and held in custody under caught-in-the-act rules allowing police to override parliamentary immunity, prosecutors said.

The Senate is the upper house of the French parliament. Broadcaster RMC, which first reported the story, said police had searched his office and home, where prosecutors confirmed they found ecstasy.