The Director General of Civil Security is suspected of sexual assault. While a previous complaint for harassment targets him, Alain Thirion was suspended from his duties as a precaution, on Monday July 3, 2023.
The Director General of Civil Security (DGSCGC), Alain Thirion, has been suspended from his duties. This temporary withdrawal, effective since July 3, was announced by a source from the Ministry of the Interior to Corse Matin and confirmed by AFP, this Wednesday, July 5, 2023. This suspension decided on a precautionary basis would have been applied after “facts likely to call into question the current DGSCGC” were brought to the ear of Minister Gérald Darmanin. If the nature of the facts in question has not been revealed, the Corsican newspaper writes that it could be “a sexual assault” denounced a week earlier at the National School of Fire Officers from Aix-en-Provence. AFP for its part evokes a “sexual assault” or at least reprehensible facts of the same order.
The withdrawal of Alain Thirion from his duties should be recorded during the Council of Ministers on Wednesday and last until the end of the investigation. “An inspection mission has been commissioned and will report its conclusions within a month,” a ministerial source told our colleagues.
Shortly after his arrival at the head of Civil Security in 2019, the one who was prefect of Corsica from 2015 to 2017 was targeted by a complaint from the former sub-prefect of Calvi, Anne Ballereau, in December 2019. sexagenarian had complained of “moral harassment in the context of work and sexual harassment by a person in authority” recalls Corse Matin who had revealed the case. Alain Thirion was placed in police custody in July 2020 for “moral harassment” before being released. The case was dismissed the following year, judging that the offense was insufficiently characterized.
This first case was again brought before the courts in January 2022 with a new complaint and a civil party constitution by Anne Ballereau. In this complaint, the former sub-prefect says that she “suffered” from “many innuendos with a sexual connotation, inappropriate gestures, humiliating remarks and harassing behavior”. The prosecutor of the Republic of Bastia, Arnaud Viornery, had confirmed after the filing of a complaint the appointment of an investigating judge to investigate the boss of Civil Security.
