France’s political left has been called a “moral wreck” after Greens MP Julien Bayou became the second high-profile MP in a week to be accused of violence against a woman.
Bayou was suspended from his role as as co-president of the Greens bloc in the National Assembly following allegations he psychologically abused a former girlfriend.
"We are a feminist party, and so we place ourselves at the service of women's testimony," Sandra Regol, vice-president of the Greens group, told France Info on Wednesday.
"We acknowledged that the only way to show we weren't pretending and weren't hiding was a temporary suspension."
Bayou’s standing down came after a prominent member of the hard-left France Unbowed party, Adrien Quatennens, on Sunday admitted to slapping his wife.
He too stepped down from a senior role as party coordinator.
Both Bayou and Quatennens are senior figures in the Nupes parliamentary alliance that robbed President Emmanuel Macron’s party of its lower house majority in elections earlier this year.
While party leader Jean-Luc Melenchon leapt to Quatennens’ defence, some 550 feminist activists co-signed an editorial in left-wing daily Libération calling for Quatennens to resign his seat in parliament.
Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne it was "extremely shocking to have someone playing down domestic violence”, while Jordan Bardella, of the far-right National Rally, told France Info the country was witnessing the "moral wreckage of the left".
