Authorities in France are facing growing public outrage after new details emerged about a senior official accused of drugging more than two hundred women during job interviews.

Christian Nègre, who previously served in a senior human-resources role at the Ministry of Culture, is suspected of secretly adding a powerful diuretic to tea or coffee that he offered to candidates.

The aim, investigators say, was to force the women into an uncontrollable need to urinate while he observed them.

According to testimony uncovered in a lengthy investigation, the alleged behavior took place over nearly a decade, between 2010 and 2019.

Nègre reportedly avoided conducting interviews inside the ministry, instead proposing long walks through parks and riverside areas with no nearby restrooms.

Many of the women described feeling suddenly dizzy, shaky, and overwhelmed by the urgent need to relieve themselves.

Some were unable to reach a toilet in time, leaving them humiliated and disoriented.

One woman, Sylvie Delezenne, recalled receiving coffee during her interview before being led on a prolonged walk through the Tuileries Garden.

As the effects of the drug intensified, she crouched in a tunnel near a pedestrian bridge over the Seine.

Nègre, she said, lifted his jacket and told her, “I’ll shield you”.

For years afterward, she struggled with shame, insomnia, and recurring panic, unaware that she had been drugged.

Another candidate, Anaïs de Vos, recounted a similar experience.

She accepted a cup of coffee even though she rarely drank it, believing it inappropriate to refuse during an interview.

She soon felt overwhelming pressure to urinate but was steered away from returning to the office and toward the riverbank.

She later lost control inside a café, and on her journey home feared she might faint.

A third woman, identified as Émilie, recalled being given tea in 2017 before an interview that turned into a two-hour walk.

She said she became dizzy and frightened, repeatedly asking to stop or find a restroom.

Only later, when investigators contacted her, did she realize she had been subjected to the same pattern as many others.

The investigation began in 2018 after a colleague accused Nègre of attempting to film a civil servant’s legs.

Police searching his computer uncovered a spreadsheet titled “Experiments,” listing names, reactions, and notes about the drugging incidents, as well as photos of women’s legs.

Although he was dismissed from the Culture Ministry in 2019, the judicial process has moved slowly.

Today Nègre remains free and works in the private sector while the case remains under investigation.

Women’s-rights advocates say the drawn-out inquiry reflects systemic failures in addressing chemical submission and sexual exploitation.

The case has drawn comparisons to the widely publicized story of Gisèle Pelicot, whose husband drugged her for years and arranged violent assaults by dozens of men.

Survivors of the current case say the delays feel like a second victimization and continue to call for justice.

As the investigation proceeds, the scale of the allegations — more than two hundred women over nearly a decade — has triggered a national debate about workplace safety, institutional accountability, and the responsibility of the state to act swiftly when patterns of abuse emerge.