Police to quiz top French chef Guy Martin over rape claims

French police are to quiz Michelin-starred French chef Guy Martin after a woman accused him of raping her during a business meeting at his Paris restaurant.

Ms Châtelet Sanchez reportedly accused Mr Martin, 63, of “rape and sexual aggression” at Le Grand Véfour, central Paris, in February 2015.

A preliminary investigation has been opened into the allegations, the Paris prosecutor’s office confirmed this week. Mr Martin has strongly denied any wrongdoing.

If police find sufficient evidence to bring a case, the inquiry will be handed over to an investigating magistrate and Mr Martin face charges, otherwise the case will be dropped.

Police interviewed Florence Châtelet Sanchez, founder and president of By Dehesa, a company supplying high-quality gastronomic products to several Paris restaurants, for four hours on Friday.

She told officers the high-profile chef had assaulted her in a private room on an upper floor of the restaurant.

The delay in reporting the alleged attack was because she had been in a “long period of denial”, her lawyer Vanessa Zencker told Libération newspaper.

She had been encouraged to go to police following the #MeToo movement, added Ms Zencker.

Mr Martin said he was “formally contesting” the accusations that Châtelet Sanchez first made in Atabula food magazine in September when the chef tweeted that the claims were “without any foundation whatsoever”. He said he had not been informed of the complaint and declined to comment on the legal action.

The issue of sexual violence in the upper echelons of Gallic gastronomy hit the headlines in September when Japanese chef Taku Sekine, at the helm of two high-profile restaurants in Paris, committed suicide after being accused of sexual assault.

His family denied the allegations, saying that he had “never been prosecuted or the object of a complaint.” They blamed social and news media, saying that it had pushed him into depression.

However, since then several female chefs have spoken out about harassment, sexual abuse and a culture of impunity in the French culinary world that must change.

Ms Châtelet Sancez had told Libération she had opted to “keep quiet” for a time in the wake of the Sekine suicide.

Atabula chief Franck Pinay-Ribaroust recently told The Telegraph he had no regrets naming both chefs.

“People didn’t speak out but now it’s starting to snowball, even if they more often than not don’t want to name names”.