For several weeks, many women have accused psychoanalyst and media columnist Gérard Miller of sexual violence. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary investigation. He says he is “certain of having committed no offense”.
The testimonies are multiplying. Since the end of January, several women have accused psychoanalyst Gérard Miller of sexual violence. The Paris prosecutor’s office has opened a preliminary investigation into the facts targeting the media columnist, who says he is “certain to have committed no offense”. A look back at a case that has continued to grow in recent weeks.
Accusations of rape and sexual assault
On January 31, Elle magazine published investigation recounting testimonies from women saying they were victims of sexual assault and rape at the hands of Gérard Miller.
The magazine notably reports the story of journalist and director Muriel Cousin, who claims to have been touched during a hypnosis session with the psychoanalyst in 1990, when she was 23 years old. It had not then “occurred to him to file a complaint” because “at the time, that was not done”.
Another woman denounces a rape during such a session in 2004, when she was 19 years old, following having attended a program in which the famous psychoanalyst and columnist, now active on the left with La France insoumise, participated. (LFI). According to her, the events took place at the home of Gérard Miller, following a game based on hypnosis. “I can no longer move. I am a doll that can be undressed and to which you can do whatever you want,” she testifies.
Gérard Miller denies any constraint
Gérard Miller, who does not deny having had relationships with these women, disputes their accusations. “If something displeased them while they were with me, I have no hesitation in saying so: nothing I perceived indicated to me that they wanted to put an end to the situation, because otherwise I would have put an end to it right now,” he said in a letter published on X as soon as the Elle investigation was published.
He also declares that he has never practiced hypnosis in his office or at his home, but always in public. According to him, what happened in a private setting was a matter of “elementary tests” and “the one who agreed to do so was absolutely not hypnotized, he or she remained perfectly conscious, in total possession of his or her means.”
Gérard Miller: following the first revelations, a new wave of damning testimonies
“With all women, I am convinced that I have not forced anyone, taking literally any embarrassment, any refusal, and especially when I embarked on the path of seduction,” he maintains. in his letter, where he nevertheless recognizes an “unequal relationship” which existed between these young women and this “man of power”.
The testimonies are piling up
Audrey thus recounted having been raped at the psychoanalyst’s home when she was 17 years old, in 2004. “I tremble. He gets on top of me. He penetrates me with his penis. I am paralyzed. Finally, he stops and said to me: ‘Good! Come on! Now that’s enough, we shouldn’t ask too much!’. This sentence remained engraved in my memory”, she recalled to Elle.
Another woman, Aude, spoke to BFMTV. She was also 17 years old when she met Gérard Miller in 2001, and explains that she was the victim of rape by him before suffering traumatic amnesia. It all came back to him when the first revelations were published in January. “It literally hit me in the face, then I needed to speak, to tell my story. This violence overwhelmed me all at once,” she explained to BFMTV.
An open investigation
Some, like Aude, decided to turn to justice. On February 22, the Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that it had received reports from six women declaring that they had suffered, at a minimum, gestures of a sexual nature from Gérard Miller to which they said they had not given their consent. The facts cover the period from 1995 to 2005. The public prosecutor’s office therefore opened a preliminary investigation into facts likely to be qualified as rape and sexual assault, sometimes once morest minors, and the Paris Judicial Police Department is responsible for investigation.
The prosecution specifies that all people likely to have been victims will be heard as such, regardless of their choice to qualify their story as “testimony” or “complaint”. “Certain that I have not committed any offense and ready to respond to each of the alleged facts, I now wish to reserve my word for the judicial institution,” responded Gérard Miller immediately following the opening of the investigation.
