Former French senator found guilty of drugging MPs

A former French senator has been found guilty of spiking an MP’s drink with ecstasy in order to sexually assault her.

Joel Guerriau was sentenced to four years in prison, with 18 months to be served in prison, and was ordered to pay Sandrine Josso €5,000 (£4,348) in emotional distress, according to local media.

Guerriau, 68, invited Josso, 50, to his Paris apartment in November 2023. He later admitted offering her a drink laced with MDMA but insisted it was an accident and denied any intention to attack her.

Shortly after Tuesday’s verdict, Giosso said it was a “huge relief,” AFP reported. Meanwhile, Guerio’s lawyer said he would appeal.

According to court documents cited by French media, Giosso said she had gone to Gallio’s home three years ago to celebrate his re-election when she began to feel ill after drinking from a glass of champagne.

“I went to visit a friend and found an aggressor,” she said while giving evidence at the trial on Monday.

“He looked at me insistently and I had never looked at him like that. I didn’t want him to see my weakness because I was worried that if I told him I wasn’t feeling well, he would force me to lie down.”

Joso recalled that she managed to leave the apartment and was helped to the hospital by a colleague, where a toxicology report confirmed she had three times the recreational dose of ecstasy in her blood.

Gallio told the court he was going through a period of depression and had planned to take his own medication the night before. He said he ultimately failed to do so and accidentally handed the glass containing ecstasy to Joso the next night.

“I feel sorry for Sandrine,” Guerillo told the Paris court. “I’m disgusted with myself and my own recklessness and stupidity.”

He added: “We don’t talk about the effects of these drugs enough… I just want to speak out about the dangers of these products.”

When asked about his numerous searches on the internet about the drugs ecstasy and GHB, he said he could not remember.

“I was on the train and all sorts of thoughts and ideas just came to me,” he told the court, adding that members of the government needed to show an interest in “all current affairs.”

Guerio, a center-right senator from the Horizon party, was suspended after the allegations against him came to light. He resigned from the Senate last October.

Giosso remains a lawmaker for the centre-right Modern Democratic Party, where he has become a staunch campaigner against so-called chemical sexual assault.

“What I went through is still very painful,” Giosso told French media before the trial began.

“The trauma felt like it was frozen in time…I would jump at the slightest thing. I became very vulnerable.”

Giosso later joined an association against chemical submissions, founded by Caroline Darian, the daughter of Dominique Pelicot. In 2024, Dominique Pelicot was convicted of drugging his wife, Gisele, and inviting men to rape her in their home for more than a decade.

During the Pellicott trial, Gioso was a frequent presence in court. This week, Darian and her brother David attended proceedings in the Gallio case.