The Pope’s envoy to France is under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting a junior city hall staffer during an event in Paris last month, a judicial source confirmed to Euronews on Friday.
Archbishop Luigi Ventura, 74, has been the Vatican ambassador to France for the past 10 years.
He is suspected of having inappropriately touched a junior staff member during Mayor Anne HIdalgo’s New Year address on January 17.
A city hall official told Reuters that Ventura “caressed in an insistent and repeated manner the young man’s buttocks during the ceremony. He put his hands on his buttocks several times.”
City hall contacted authorities on January 23 and a judicial source confirmed to Euronews that a probe for sexual assault was launched on January 24.
The Vatican has not yet commented on the reports.