Rape case against French budget minister Gerald Darmanin dropped

An investigation into claims that Budget Minister Gerald Darmanin raped a former call girl in 2009 has been dropped, French prosecutors said on Friday.

The Paris prosecutor’s office said a preliminary probe had failed to establish “the absence of consent on the part of the complainant” or that she was acting “under constraint, threat, surprise or any sort of violence towards her.”

Darmanin, one of the star performers in President Emmanuel Macron’s centrist government, had furiously denied pressuring the woman into sex in return for a promise to expunge her criminal record.

Welcoming Friday’s decision, the 35-year-old minister thanked those who had supported him “in this difficult time” and said: “Since the start of this slander I have always kept my trust in the justice system.”

But he is still under investigation over separate allegations made by another woman who accused him of using his position to ask for sexual favours.