Sexual misconduct: 6 French women face defamation claim

Six French women, along with journalists who published their accounts, face a defamation claim by a former French lawmaker they accused of sexual misconduct.

The trial that opened Monday in Paris was prompted by Denis Baupin, a former prominent Green Party politician and Paris city official.

In May 2016, Mediapart website and France Inter radio published accounts from 14 women who alleged he had groped, sexted and otherwise harassed them. The statute of limitations had expired on the alleged facts.

Laurence Mermet and her lawyer Romuald Sayagh anwer reporters at the Paris courthouse, Monday Jan.4, 2019. A former French lawmaker's defamation lawsuit against six women who accused him of sexual misconduct and four journalists who reported the allegations goes to trial Monday in what some fear illustrates a backlash against the #MeToo movement. (AP PhotoNicolas Garriga)

Baupin denied wrongdoing and sued the women named in the reports.

His lawyer Emmanuel Pierrat said Baupin expects that his "innocence" will be "totally proved."

One defendant, Elen Debost, said it's "a disgrace" to be "sitting on the bench of the accused when this man hasn't even been judged."

Former Green party member Annie Lahmer poses at the Paris courthouse, Monday Jan.4, 2019. A former French lawmaker's defamation lawsuit against six women who accused him of sexual misconduct and four journalists who reported the allegations goes to trial Monday in what some fear illustrates a backlash against the #MeToo movement. (AP PhotoNicolas Garriga)

former Green Party spokeswoman Sandrine Rousseau, who accused Denis Baupin of grabbing her breast at a 2011 meeting, arrives at the Paris courthouse, Monday Jan.4, 2019. Baupin, a former French lawmaker's defamation lawsuit against six women who accused him of sexual misconduct and four journalists who reported the allegations goes to trial Monday in what some fear illustrates a backlash against the #MeToo movement. (AP PhotoNicolas Garriga)

In this picture taken on Sept. 21, 2014, Denis Baupin, a prominent Green Party member and former Paris city official, takes part in a climate change demonstration in Paris, France. Baupin's defamation lawsuit against six women who accused him of sexual misconduct and four journalists who reported the allegations, goes to trial Monday Feb. 4, 2019, in what some fear illustrates a backlash against the #MeToo movement. (AP Photo)

LONDON (AP) — The pharma giant AstraZeneca has requested that the European authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine be pulled, according to the EU medicines regulator.

In an update on the European Medicines Agency's website Wednesday, the regulator said that the approval for AstraZeneca's Vaxzevria had been withdrawn “at the request of the marketing authorization holder.”

AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine was first given the nod by the EMA in January 2021. Within weeks, however, concerns grew about the vaccine's safety, when dozens of countries suspended the vaccine's use after unusual but rare blood clots were detected in a small number of immunized people. The EU regulator concluded AstraZeneca's shot didn't raise the overall risk of clots, but doubts remained.

Partial results from its first major trial — which Britain used to authorize the vaccine — were clouded by a manufacturing mistake that researchers didn’t immediately acknowledge. Insufficient data about how well the vaccine protected older people led some countries to initially restrict its use to younger populations before reversing course.

Billions of doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine were distributed to poorer countries through a U.N.-coordinated program, as it was cheaper and easier to produce and distribute. But studies later suggested that the pricier messenger RNA vaccines made by Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna provided better protection against COVID-19 and its many variants, and most countries switched to those shots.

The U.K.'s national coronavirus immunization program in 2021 heavily relied on AstraZeneca's vaccine, which was largely developed by scientists at Oxford University with significant financial government support. But even Britain later resorted to buying the mRNA vaccines for its COVID booster vaccination programs and the AstraZeneca vaccine is now rarely used globally.

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

FILE - Medical staff prepares an AstraZeneca coronavirus vaccine during preparations at the vaccine center in Ebersberg near Munich, Germany, Monday, March 22, 2021. The pharma giant AstraZeneca has requested that its European authorization for its COVID vaccine be pulled, according to the EU medicines regulator on Wednesday, May 8, 2024. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, FILE)