French police detained writer Frederic Beigbeder

PARIS, December 12 The famous French writer Frédéric Beigbeder was placed in custody, radio station France Bleu reported, citing the prosecutor of the city of Pau, Rodolphe Jarry.
“Frédéric Beigbeder was placed in custody at the Commissariat of Pau (department of the Pyrenees-Atlantiques) on Tuesday, December 12, 2023. The writer was summoned for questioning at nine in the morning as part of the investigation,” the radio reports.
The prosecutor stressed that the case is not connected with drugs.

According to radio station Franceinfo, which cites a police source, the writer was summoned for questioning and detained as part of a preliminary investigation into a rape case. It is noted that the complaint was received in the summer from a young woman. According to her, she had sexual relations with the writer twice: the first time by mutual consent, the second time on the same night without her consent.

A few hours later, Beigbeder was released from custody. In a conversation with the police, he denied all charges, radio station Franceinfo reports.

In 2008, police detained Beigbeder for snorting cocaine from the hood of a car. When he saw the police, he unsuccessfully tried to run away. The writer was found with two more bags of white powder. After interrogation, Begbeder was released and placed under police supervision. In 2022, in an interview with Obs, he said that he had finished drug addiction.
Beigbeder was born in 1965 in the city of Nain-sur-Seine near Paris. He received a diploma from the Paris Institute of Political Studies and then a diploma in advertising and marketing from the Ecole Supérieure de l'Information et de la Communication (CELSA). He worked for the large advertising agency Young and Rubicam, and was a literary critic for Elle, Paris Match and other magazines.

His novel “99 Francs,” a sharp denunciation of the advertising business, became the leader in book sales in France in 2000 . Begbeder is the author of the works “Love Lives for Three Years”, “Windows on the World”, “Romantic Egoist”, “Holidays in a Coma”, “Stories on Ecstasy” and others. Beigbeder also founded the literary prize, which was awarded, in particular, to the books of Michel Houellebecq and Virginie Depant.
In November 2007, a public debate between Beigbeder and Houellebecq was held in Moscow, dedicated to the latest books of the writers. The debate, which was attended by a huge number of press and public, was sabotaged by the authors, limiting themselves to a friendly conversation and drinking a bottle of vodka.