Monitoring Desk
PARIS: Prosecutors have said that the French authorities have opened a preliminary inquiry into allegations that a former archbishop of Paris committed “sexual assault on a vulnerable person”.
Prosecutors’ stance
They said that the probe was opened based on the report filed by the diocese of Paris. Michel Aupetit offered to resign in 2021 following media reports of the intimate tie with a woman in 2012 before he took on a post, allegations he has categorically rejected. Pope Francis accepted the resignation.
French broadcaster BFM TV a 24-hour rolling news and weather channel based in France has reported that the tie was with a vulnerable person under judicial protection. The source close to the case told Agence France-Presse (AFP) the probe was looking into “email exchanges” between Aupetit and a woman, whose consent would have to be confirmed in view of her mental health.
In the statement on Tuesday evening, a diocese confirmed it had filed a report, and said that it was “not in a position to verify whether a fact in question is proven or whether they constitute an offense.” A clergyman’s lawyer Jean Reinhart refused to comment. He said that he had absolutely no knowledge of a complaint, and declined to comment on the subject.
The diocese spokeswoman in 2021 said that Aupetit “had ambiguous behaviour with the person he was close to,” adding that it was “not a loving relationship,” nor sexual. But she said that the offer to step down was “not a confession of guilt.”
Aupetit was archbishop during April 2019 fire that ravaged the Notre-Dame cathedral in Paris, regularly appearing on the television to express anguish over the disaster and rally aids for the rebuilding effort.
