One of them said Baupin held her against the wall, touched her breast and tried to kiss her by force. Others claim that sent them explicit text messages. Another recounted how he had chased around a desk. Another said he had pinched her bottom.
The Paris prosecutor announced an investigation of a criminal offense will open. Baupin, 53 years representative for Paris and great promise of the Green Party, complained of what he called a "trap" and threatened to sue the media who spread the story.
However, charges have motivated you to question whether in fact anything has changed in France since the fall of a former executive of the International Monetary Fund, Dominique Strauss-Kahn, who was a waitress in a New York hotel accused of assault 2011.
Apparently, none of that stopped Baupin. But in the country where even the word for "lewd joke" (gauloiserie) evokes the ancestral homeland, Gaul, there are indications that this time some things might have changed.
Since the allegations were made public, leading members of the Greens have recognized, ashamed, they knew for years how Baupin behaved. Women knew well that should avoid riding in an elevator alone with him or go to your office without a companion. He was nicknamed the Octopus.
However, the attitude of the men seemed rather indifferent. "Ah, so I started again?" Asked a member of lackadaisical Green party when a woman in full commotion told how he had attacked in 2011, according to the news website Mediapart.
At the time of his arrest in New York, Strauss-Kahn, who most considered a serious contender for the presidency of France, he had many supporters. "Do not kill anyone," said Jack Lang, a former culture minister for the Socialist Party.
Strauss-Kahn, known as DSK, presented his own defense before a French court claiming that it was just a little "libertine" and was testing another lifestyle. (Later, he arranged the dispute out of court in exchange for a considerable sum, as rumored).
Although few French politicians who have decided to denounce the conduct of Baupin, the fact is that nobody defends. The leading conservative philosopher Alain Finkielkraut said ruefully radio "France is very fast Americanized" but added that decried the "unseemly actions."
Denis Baupin, former vice president of the French National Assembly by the green party has had to resign over allegations of sexual harassment. Credit Stephane Mahe / Reuters
The affair has embarrassed the political class, which dominates the male gender (75 percent of assembly members are male), and especially the Greens, one of the political parties most supportive feminist causes France.
Now, even the wife of Baupin, Emmanuelle Cosse, who is also a member of the party and holds the position of Minister of Housing in the current socialist government, has been the subject of accusations, at least one member from another party, to cover the actions of her husband. She has denied such accusations.
Sandrine Rousseau, party spokesman announced through the radio station France Inter and the site Mediapart their experience with Baupin during a party meeting in 2011.
"I took a break," he said. "I was in the corridor next to the room when I saw coming Denis Baupin. He held me against the wall and touched my breasts. He tried to kiss me. I pushed him hard. Such was my shock at that time I said nothing. "
Convictions have been severe. Distinguished French policies, including 16 former ministers are counted, have publicly committed to "never stay silent" according to the Journal du Dimanche published Sunday. This time "was too" they wrote women. "You can not respect the code of omerta and the law of silence".
"It is essential to change the behavior of some men," he stressed.
Some of the victims of Baupin and begin to notice some changes. "Yes, it is different," said Annie Lahmer, councilor in Paris, who Baupin chased around a desk in the late nineties.
"Bartolone asked to resign immediately, but had just happened," he added Lahmer, with respect to the President of the National Assembly, Claude Bartolone.
In addition, "people will talk more freely now" after the scandal of DSK, he said. "In the case of Baupin, nobody says that it is only a libertine. Nobody defends. We are in another era. "
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