In one of the weirdest and most disgusting crime stories we’ve heard about in a hot minute, a “senior French civil servant” in the culture ministry in Paris has been accused of drugging over 240 women during job interviews over nine years, with the apparent motive of making them humiliate themselves in his presence by wetting themselves.
As detailed in a report in The Guardian, Christian Nègre would invite women of various ages to job interviews and then offer them a coffee or tea. Unbeknownst to the candidates, he would spike their drink with a powerful, illegal diuretic, which he knew would soon make them desperate to pee.
According to multiple victims, Nègre would then suggest they continue the interview outside his office and had pre-decided a route he knew would be far from any public toilets. During the walk, the women would suddenly feel the need to use the bathroom but, as this was a job interview, they’d usually try to suppress the urge until the interview was over.
Nègre knew they couldn’t hold out forever and appears to have taken a sick pleasure in dragging his questions out, then watching the candidates wet themselves or be forced to squat in public – their subsequent embarrassment, shame, and humiliation the goal of his disgusting exercise.
The victims speak out
Victim Sylvie Delezenne outlined her encounter with Nègre, saying she was invited to a job interview by Nègre and felt obliged to accept his offer of a coffee: “In an interview situation, I’d never say no”. He surreptitiously drugged her drink, then suggested carrying on the interview on a walk through the nearby Tuileries gardens.
Nègre dragged on the interview for several hours:
“But I felt an increasing need to urinate. My hands were trembling, my heart was palpitating, beads of sweat ran down my forehead and I was turning red. I said: ‘I’m going to need a technical break.’ But he kept on walking.”
She could only hold it so long and was forced to squat in public: “He approached, took off his jacket, and said: ‘I’ll shield you.’ I thought that was strange.” The experience left her “devastated”, believing she’d ruined the interview and blaming herself for “messing up”. Her encounter with Nègre left its mark: “I had nightmares, angry outbursts. I didn’t look for work; I thought I was useless.”
Another woman described a similar incident. When she told Nègre she needed the bathroom during their interview: “He looked me in the eye and said: ‘Do you need a wee?’ It was like an adult talking to a child. I found it bizarre”. This woman ended up sprinting to a cafe, but wet herself before she could make it to the bathroom.
These are just two of hundreds of suspected victims. Nègre first aroused suspicions at work in 2018 when he was caught trying to photograph the legs of a senior official, prompting an investigation that found a spreadsheet named “Experiments” on his computer detailing each woman’s reactions to the drug.
Cut to the present, and this long investigation is finally heading towards a trial, with a lawyer for many of the victims, Louise Beriot, summarizing his crimes: “this is about power and domination over women’s bodies … through humiliation and control.”
The vast amount of victims and Nègre’s detailed spreadsheet mean it’s taken years to contact each woman and prepare the criminal case against him. Now, an investigating judge has the case, so we can only hope there’s a trial soon so that this sicko can face the full consequences of his actions.
