Man who released Macron ally sex video arrested

French police have arrested a Russian activist artist behind the discharge of a intercourse video that introduced down a political ally of President Emmanuel Macron.

Petr Pavlensky was detained in Paris, French media report.

The video scuppered Benjamin Griveaux’s candidacy for mayor of Paris. Its launch was extensively condemned.

A bit-known web site alleged that Mr Griveaux had exchanged intimate cell phone messages with a younger girl and despatched her the video.

Mr Pavlensky, who sought asylum from Russia in 2017, stated he had posted the video, displaying a person concerned in a sexual act, on-line.

The distribution of the clip, which unfold rapidly throughout social media on Thursday, introduced condemnation from throughout the political spectrum.

The present Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo stated folks’s non-public lives ought to be revered.

Far-left chief Jean-Luc Mélenchon condemned the video’s launch as “odious”, whereas far-right chief Marine Le Pen steered Mr Griveaux shouldn’t have give up.

Judicial sources quoted by French media stated the arrest of Mr Pavlensky was not linked with the video. He was being investigated over an alleged brawl in Paris on 31 December.

Mr Pavlensky says he posted the video to reveal what he sees because the politician’s hypocrisy.

Mr Griveaux, who’s married with kids and was as soon as a authorities spokesman, condemned the distribution of the video as he withdrew his candidacy on Friday.

“My household doesn’t deserve this. No-one ought to ever be subjected to such abuse,” he stated.

Who’s Petr Pavlensky?

He first gained notoriety by nailing his scrotum to Moscow’s Crimson Sq. in 2013. He fled Russia and sought asylum in France when he was accused by the authorities of a sexual assault that he denied.

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He served seven months in jail for setting the entrance door of the FSB intelligence company on fireplace in Moscow and later induced minor harm to a Banque de France department by setting that alight.

Earlier than his arrest, he informed French information channel LCI that Mr Griveaux was solely the primary politician that he would goal, saying he would stick with it combating the “propaganda and puritanism of politicians”.

French media have historically averted prying into the non-public lives of individuals in public life and a lot of figures referred distastefully to the “Americanisation” of politics.