PARIS: French health minister Agnes Buzyn will run for Paris mayor after the previous ruling party candidate pulled out over a sexting scandal, party officials said yesterday.
Buzyn, a doctor who has been leading France’s response to the coronavirus, had put her name forward, a source close to President Emmanuel Macron’s LREM party said.
“Agnes Buzyn is deeply keen to get involved in Paris. She has convinced us,” party member Mounir Mahjoubi, a former minister, said on Twitter.
Buzyn, 58, will have to reinvigorate a campaign blown off course when Benjamin Griveaux, one of Macron’s closest lieutenants, pulled out of the race on Friday after it was alleged he sent sexual images to a woman.
Griveaux – one of the “Macron boys” group that helped propel the former investment banker into power in 2017 – said he and his family had been subjected to months of anonymous statements defaming him.
A Russian dissident artist, Pyotr Pavlensky, published screenshots of an online chat which he said was between Griveaux and a woman who is not his wife. Griveaux has not disputed that he sent the messages.