Who is Christian Nègre? Nearly 200 women accuse former French civil servant of mass drinking diuretics Today’s News
Investigators have identified 248 potential victims, with 180 women formally joining the case as civil parties, in a wide-ranging French criminal investigation involving Christian Nègre, a former senior civil servant accused of secretly drugging women with diuretics during job interviews and professional meetings between 2009 and 2018, according to the New York Times.
Many women report being lured by what appeared to be legitimate career opportunities, only to suffer sudden and overwhelming physical ailments that left them confused and humiliated.
About ten years ago, Marie-Hélène Brice, then an unemployed mother of two, attended a job interview with Christian Nègre, a senior civil servant in eastern France. According to Brice Nègre, he suggested continuing the conversation outside. During the walk, she felt an urge to urinate that was “so sudden, so burning, so terrible” that she could not control it. She said the pain was like childbirth.
“Even after literally soaking my clothes, my bladder still hurt and I needed to pee,” said Brice, now 39.
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Two years later, police informed her that they were investigating allegations that Nègre had secretly added diuretics to drinks offered to more than a hundred women during job interviews between 2009 and 2018. Diuretics are drugs commonly used to treat high blood pressure and can cause a surge in urine production.
Who is Christian Nègre?
Christian Nègre has built a long career in the French civil service and joined the Ministry of Culture in 2010. He initially served as the ministry’s human resources director at its Paris headquarters, and in 2016 was appointed to another senior administrative role in the ministry’s regional office in eastern France, according to the report.
Nègre was removed from his post at the Ministry of Culture in October 2018. Months later, prosecutors placed him under formal investigation on charges including administering harmful substances, assaulting a public official, invasion of privacy and sexual assault for alleged acts that allegedly occurred between 2009 and 2018.
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Authorities first learned of the allegations against Nègre in 2018, when he was accused of secretly photographing a woman’s legs under a table during a meeting. According to the testimony of former colleagues presented in court in the case against the French state, his behavior at the ministry was so well known that his colleagues gave him the nickname “the photographer”.
According to prosecutors, investigators later searched Mr. Nègro’s electronic devices and discovered a spreadsheet containing details of 181 women he allegedly met for interviews and allegedly drugged, the report said.
Complainants’ anger grew in October after a French newspaper reported that Christian Nègre had continued to work under a different identity, teaching human resources at universities and acting as a consultant in another region of France.
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In an interview with a French national newspaper in 2019, Mr. Nègre admitted to drugging “10 or 20” women in Paris, although he did not identify the individuals and has not made any public statements since. His lawyer, Vanessa Stein, said he would not comment on the case because of the ongoing police investigation, the NYT reported.
Although the criminal case has not yet gone to trial, it has begun to attract more and more attention in the public debate in France.
Meanwhile, Laure Beccuau, the prosecutor overseeing the investigation, did not respond to NYT requests for comment. Her office said in a public statement issued in February that it was working with several law enforcement agencies to complete the investigation by the end of the year.