Women who were allegedly drugged by a senior French government official so they would urinate during job interviews have spoken of their humiliation.
Christian Nègre, a former senior civil servant and human resources director at France’s culture ministry, is under investigation over claims he spiked 248 women with a powerful diuretic between 2009 and 2018.
The official allegedly laced their coffees and teas before taking them on ‘walking interviews’, knowing the drug would leave them suddenly needing the toilet.
Nicknamed the photographer at the culture ministry, he snapped secret pictures of the women, noting every detail of the encounters and recording them on an excel spreadsheet titled ‘experiments’.
Many women reported trembling, dizziness, humiliation and, in several cases, being forced to urinate in public or wetting their clothes.
Nègre, who is in his 60s, was only caught when a colleague saw him photographing a female official’s legs in their office in 2018.
Police uncovered files of the women and charged him with administering harmful substances without consent.
An investigation was opened in 2019 but six years on it has been beset by judicial delays, with no trial date set and Nègre remaining free.
Christian Nègre, a former senior civil servant and human resources director at France ‘s culture ministry, is under investigation over claims he spiked 248 women
And prosecutors have told his alleged victims they only have a month to submit their testimonies before the inquiry is closed.
Seven women have now spoken out, detailing the horror and humiliation they suffered at the hands of the official.
One woman described how she was left in tears from ‘excruciating pain’ she suffered when they went for a walk to discuss career possibilities over coffee in 2016.
She told The Telegraph Nègre looked her in the eyes as she was forced to urinate into a river, with the civil servant covering her with a jacket.
She said she spiralled into a depression after being a victim of his sadistic power play.
‘It was a double shock,’ she said. ‘First, you think it’s your fault. Then you discover you were poisoned.’
Another alleged victim described ‘realizing something was wrong’ after being given a drink before a walk through the Tuileries Gardens towards the Louvre in Paris in 2011.
‘I realised something was wrong when he suggested I relieve myself under a bridge,’ she said.
‘I thought: if I go in there, he might attack me.’
She refused his suggestion but later urinated herself as she rushed to a toilet in a cafe near the Louvre.
Eight years later police contacted her, informing the victim that Nègre wrote how she ‘still had to hold on’, how she ‘moaned’, ‘disappeared for 15 minutes’ and replied ‘coldly’ when asked about it.
He recorded the time he administered the drug, when she was asked for a ‘technical break’ and when she urinated.
A third woman said she met him in 2015 after he messaged her on LinkedIn in relation to a role in the cultural sector when she was a student.
She drank tea in a culture ministry meeting room and went on a walk before relieving herself near the Seine.
Prosecutors have told his alleged victims they only have a month to submit their testimonies before the inquiry is closed
She said: ‘We still think that rape, rapists and paedophiles are actually exceptions, they’re monsters… No, they are integrated people who have children, who are married, who work, and they are at all social levels.’
Nègre has not publically apologised to the women and has downplayed the number of victims and his actions.
Despite being removed from the civil service in 2019, Nègre has been able to continue working in the private sector while the case drags on.
He gave a fake surname, Genre, and taught at a business school in Caen before being discovered by students, leading to his sacking.
One victim, who was secretly photographed 12 times, said everyone knew he was suspicious and woman were told to wear trousers not skirts when meeting him and to avoid one-on-one meetings.
In 2023, the French state was ordered to pay up to £14,000 to seven alleged victims in a civil case.
But the culture ministry was found not to be at fault as an employer.
Another victim said a female officer dismissed her claim when she reported him to the police because he was too ‘high up’.
And a different one spoke of feeling like she was ‘going to die’ and that her body felt like it was going to ‘explode’ before urinating next to a bridge.
Nègre noted her ‘stream was powerful’ and her ‘knickers were black’.
Louise Beriot, a lawyer for several of the women, said of the alleged druggings: ‘Under the pretext of a sexual fantasy, this is about power and domination over women’s bodies… through humiliation and control.’
Lawyers representing some of the women say the six-year delay in bringing the case to trial amounts to ‘secondary victimisation’, compounding the trauma of those involved.
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