Nearly 200 women have come forward accusing a former senior official from France’s culture ministry of secretly drugging them during work meetings.
The man, Christian Negre, allegedly used these encounters to humiliate and degrade them, a scandal that’s put the spotlight back on abuse of power and the sluggish pace of justice in France.
Women Allege Systematic Abuse by French Ministry Official
Hiyam Zarouri remembers exactly how it started. She was 25, out of work, when she got a LinkedIn message from Negre, who was then a human resources manager at the Ministry of Culture. She thought he wanted to help her with her career.
But things took a dark turn. Zarouri says Negre laced her coffee with a strong diuretic. Suddenly, she was sweating, shivering, her stomach bloated, and her feet aching in high heels as he made her walk all over central Paris. “I started to have cold sweats, chills and hot flashes, a bloated stomach, and my feet really, really hurt,” she told AFP. “I thought I was going to die.”
She’s not alone. About 200 women say Negre spiked their drinks during job interviews or meetings, forcing them into painful, humiliating situations.
Some couldn’t control their bladders in public, while Negre watched. Zarouri managed to insist on going back to the ministry to use the restroom, with Negre waiting outside. She remembers blaming herself afterwards, thinking it was her own fault.
French Justice Under Scrutiny
Years went by before Zarouri realized, through news reports, that so many others had been through the same thing.
Negre now faces charges for drugging women without their consent, sexual assault by abusing his authority, and invasion of privacy. In 2018, he admitted to investigators that he’d put women in humiliating situations during interviews. The ministry fired him the next year.
Even so, Negre isn’t in jail. He’s under judicial supervision, but not in custody. For Zarouri and other victims, that’s hard to accept. “It’s unacceptable,” she said. “He needs to be kept away from other women.”
French reporters later found out Negre spent two years teaching at a business school under a fake name. His lawyer isn’t talking.
Women’s rights groups say this case shows the same old patterns, men in power, lack of consent, and the slow grind of justice. The investigation drags on, partly because of how many victims there are and limited resources in the courts.
A full criminal trial could still be years away. But in 2023, an administrative court ordered the French state to pay damages to one victim, saying officials failed to protect her and six others. In one case, Negre had taken a woman for a walk in 2012; she felt a sudden, painful urge to urinate and ended up having to do so in front of him, under a bridge.
Investigators even found a spreadsheet on Negre’s computer labeled “Experiments.” In it, he allegedly tracked the timing of the druggings and described how each woman reacted.
Christian Negre was dismissed from the civil service in 2019
Negre was finally dismissed from the civil service in 2019 and later charged with multiple crimes, including drugging and sexual assault. His lawyer, Vanessa Stein, says he won’t comment while the investigation is still ongoing. Meanwhile, Negre has kept working in the private sector.
Louise Beriot, who represents several of the women, told The Guardian, “Under the pretext of a sexual fantasy, this is about power and domination over women’s bodies … through humiliation and control.”
Six years after Zarouri’s ordeal, the case stands out as one of France’s most recent and most troubling examples of drug-facilitated sexual abuse, what’s now often called “chemical submission.”
