Macron ally withdraws mayoral bid

>>PARIS: A member of President Emmanuel Macron’s party on Friday withdrew from the race for Paris mayor after private sexual videos he allegedly sent to an unidentified woman were published online by a Russian dissident artist who was granted political asylum in France.

The withdrawal of the candidate, Benjamin Griveaux, who blamed “vile attacks” against him and his family, was a sharp blow to Mr Macron’s efforts to rally his party for coming municipal elections across the country in which he is expected to do poorly.

The race in Paris had been considered, initially at least, a rare potential victory for Mr Macron’s party, La République en Marche, or Republic on the Move. With Mr Griveaux’s withdrawal, the president’s plans for Paris have been thrown into disarray.

Mr Griveaux, 42, announced he was dropping out after the videos began emerging on Wednesday evening. The newspaper Libération reported the videos were first circulated online by Pyotr Pavlensky, a Russian performance artist who has become notorious in Europe for his dramatic acts of protest. He once set fire to the entrance of the Bank of France in 2017, for which he received a three-year prison sentence, two of them suspended.

Mr Pavlensky told Libération that he had published the videos to expose Mr Griveaux as hypocritical because the candidate invoked “family values” and “always mentioned his wife and children as an example” during the campaign.

“I don’t mind people having the sexuality that they want,” Mr Pavlensky said, “But he wants to be the head of the city, and he is lying to voters.”

Mr Griveaux has been one of the most visible members of Mr Macron’s party. He was the face of the government on television, having served as its chief spokesman from the early months of Mr Macron’s presidency until last spring when he resigned to run for mayor of Paris.

The end of Mr Griveaux’s campaign has all but dashed Mr Macron’s hopes of taking the city, long dominated by the French left, away from Anne Hidalgo, the current Socialist mayor.

HOPES DASHED: Benjamin Griveaux, centre, who was a mayoral candidate for La République en Marche for the upcoming Paris 2020 mayoral election, speaks in Paris last week.