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Russian artist, partner held over sex tape that sank Macron ally |
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French lawyer Juan Branco answers the press after he met with his client, Russian artist Pyotr Pavlensky, as he leaves the judiciary police's regional headquarters, northwestern Paris, on February 16, 2020. French police held a Russian activist and his girlfriend for questioning on Sunday over a sex tape released online that brought down President Emmanuel Macron's favoured candidate for Paris mayor. Pyotr Pavlensky has said he leaked the video that forced the centrist ruling party's Benjamin Griveaux to bow out of the running for mayor in next month's election. Alain JOCARD / AFP.
by Mehdi Cherifia and Clare Byrne
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(AFP).- French police held a Russian activist and his girlfriend for questioning on Sunday over sex videos released online that brought down President Emmanuel Macron's favoured candidate for Paris mayor.
Pyotr Pavlensky has said he leaked the video that forced the centrist ruling party's Benjamin Griveaux to bow out of the running for mayor in next month's election.
The artist, who received asylum in France in 2017 after several radical protests in Russia, was arrested on Saturday in connection with a fight at a New Year's party.
On Sunday, however, police turned their attention to the footage posted online this week showing a man masturbating, coupled with racy text messages sent to a woman.
The videos prompted Griveaux, a married father of three, to abruptly call off his mayoral campaign, a first in France, where politicians have in the past attempted to brush off sex scandals as private matters.
Pavlensky's French girlfriend, Alexandra de Taddeo, believed to have been the recipient of the videos sent in 2018, has also been arrested on charges of invasion of privacy and publishing images of a sexual nature without consent.
'Political porn'
Pavlensky, 35, and de Taddeo, 29, were both being questioned on Sunday at the headquarters of the criminal police in Paris.
On Friday, Pavlensky told AFP that he had posted the footage online in order to expose the "hypocrisy" of 42-year-old Griveaux and planned to post more material on a newly created "political porn platform".
Griveaux "is someone who constantly brings up family values, who says he wants to be the mayor of families and always cites his wife and children as an example. But he is doing the opposite," Pavlensky told France's Liberation daily.
Griveaux's lawyer, Richard Malka, hit back on Sunday, accusing "pseudo artists" of giving "morality lessons".
French media and politicians from across the spectrum have portrayed Griveaux, a former government spokesman, as the victim of a hatchet job.
"Everyone has the right to their secret garden," the speaker of the National Assembly, Richard Ferrand, told the Journal du Dimanche weekly, echoing a sentiment still widely held nine years after politicians' morals came under scrutiny in the Dominique Strauss-Kahn affair.
Griveaux's fall left Macron's Republic on the Move (LREM) party scrambling to find a replacement candidate for Paris mayor a month before the vote.
Health Minister Agnes Buzyn told AFP Sunday she would run in Griveaux's place.
"I'm going for it with the aim of winning," Buzyn, who has been leading France's response to the coronavirus outbreak, told AFP by telephone.
Macron hailed Buzyn's "courageous decision" to throw her hat in the ring for the Paris job, his office said.
The president swiftly chose Olivier Veran, an MP and doctor, to replace Buzyn at the health ministry.
Ill-starred campaign
Griveaux's campaign had already been in trouble before the sex tape emerged, dragged down by a rebel candidacy from fellow Macron supporter and star mathematician Cedric Villani.
Recent polls had placed the official LREM candidate third, behind incumbent Mayor Anne Hidalgo, a Socialist, and conservative candidate Rachida Dati.
Griveaux had blamed the rebel candidacy of fellow Macron supporter and star mathematician Cedric Villani for his poor showing.
The polls showed Villani, who was booted out of LREM for failing to rally behind Griveaux, running in fifth place.
Raging against 'apathy'
Pavlensky has a track record of causing outrage.
In 2013, he nailed his scrotum to Red Square to protest against the "apathy and political indifference" of Russian society.
Two years later, he doused the doors of the FSB secret police headquarters with petrol and set them on fire.
In October 2017, he set fire to the offices of the Bank of France on Place Bastille, site of the attack on an infamous prison at the start of the French revolution in 1789.
The activist, who has expressed support for France's "yellow vest" protest movement, was given a short jail sentence over that incident.
He is also accused of pulling a knife during a brawl at a New Year's Eve party in Paris in December.
Two guests at the party suffered minor knife wounds, according to the Mediapart investigative website.
© Agence France-Presse
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Today's News
February 17, 2020
Palmer Museum of Art premieres brilliant exhibition of African art
Largest retrospective exhibition ever staged about Anna Ancher on view in Copenhagen
The Rolling Stones Bill Wyman's bass guitars, amps, wardrobe & memorabilia head to Julien's Auctions
Schirn Kunsthalle opens a major survey devoted to the women artists of Surrealism
Jordan Casteel won't let you look away
Valuable, rare early American coin found in French flea market junk box
Rarely-seen stain and collaged paintings from 1958-1962 by Romare Bearden on view at DC Moore Gallery
The wild, anti-authoritarian art of Peter Saul
"Measure Your Existence", a group exhibition about impermanence opens at the Rubin Museum
Russian artist, partner held over sex tape that sank Macron ally
Alexander Berggruen opens an exhibition of works by Paul Kremer
Fashion designer Alexander McQueen archive of rare early work to go under the hammer
SFMOMA opens major career retrospective of influential photographer Dawoud Bey
Exhibition features portrait paintings by Spanish artist Luis Burgos
The IMMA Collection: Freud Project presents a new research programme exploring The Artist's Studio
Archive of studio photographs from Apartheid-era South Africa offered at Bonhams
Barbara Remington, illustrator of Tolkien book covers, dies at 90
A.E. Hotchner, writer and friend of the famous, dies at 102
2020 Royal Gold Medal for Architecture awarded to Grafton Architects
Solo exhibition by New York based artist Kayode Ojo opens at Praz-Delavallade
A revolutionary approach to Beethoven: Period instruments
The Nancy Glenn Collection of Hermès scarves & shawls goes up for bid at Turner Auctions + Appraisals
Museum of Fine Arts Boston appoints new Contemporary Curatorial Assistants
Michener Art Museum launches revamped Bucks County artists database
Fine art from the estate of Eunis and Douglas Goodan heads to auction
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