A French senator has been arrested on suspicion of plying an MP with a drug with the aim of sexually assaulting her, reports say.
Joël Guerriau was detained at his Paris home after the unnamed MP allegedly had a drink with him on Tuesday night and then complained of feeling unwell.
She was taken to hospital where samples are said to have revealed traces of the drug ecstasy in her system.
As a result of the tests the woman then filed a criminal complaint.
Mr Guerriau is one of 18 Independents in the French upper house and a member of the centrist Horizons party.
Prosecutors did not identify the woman as an MP but several sources told French media that the complainant was an elected member of the Chamber of Deputies.
The senator has not been charged and his lawyer, Rémi-Pierre Drai, has given a statement stressing that “we are miles away from the obscene interpretation that one might infer from reading initial reports in the press”.
The lawyer said he was furious that parts of the inquiry had been leaked, adding that either prosecutors were to blame for the allegations surfacing in French media, or they had nothing to do with it and should investigate who was responsible.
“I’m astonished that the [complainant’s] name has not been leaked, unlike my client’s,” he said.
Mr Guerriau, 66, is a former banker who was elected to the Senate in 2011 and is vice-president of its foreign and military affairs committee. He became a local mayor in his 30s in the Loire-Atlantique area of western France.
According to the Paris prosecutor’s office he was detained on suspicion of “administering to a person without their knowledge, a substance likely to diminish their judgement or self-control, to commit a rape or sexual assault”.
Under laws that apply to someone described as caught in the act, prosecutors said that the senator was not eligible for parliamentary immunity.
The prosecutor said anyone found guilty of such an offence would face up to five years in prison and a €75,000 (£65,000) fine.
Christophe Béchu, who is both a party colleague and minister of ecological transition, said Horizons officials would meet on Saturday to discuss his position. “He clearly won’t be able to stay in the party if there is the slightest doubt surrounding the veracity of all this,” he told French radio.