Clotilde Armand, a French-Romanian member of the European Parliament, has filed a complaint against a district mayor in the Romanian capital after an investigation revealed that local police spied on her in 2017 during anti-corruption protests.
Armand is an MEP from the Renew Europe centrist bloc who is running for mayor in Bucharest’s first district in elections this month.
She filed a complaint Tuesday against district mayor, Daniel Tudorache, of the Social Democratic Party, whom she accuses of using local police to harass her in 2017.
“30 years since the heroes of the revolution died shouting “Freedom!” this is not acceptable,” she wrote on Twitter.
At the time, the then ruling Social Democratic Party was criticized for trying to undermine the rule of law and dilute anti-corruption laws and weaken judicial independence.
According to an investigation by justnews.ro, police kept tabs on Armand, who is a member of Romania’s pro-European Save Romania Union-PLUS alliance, as she participated in anti-government demonstrations, the largest since the fall of communism.
The officer in charge of her case reported on her movements, handwritten notes obtained by justnews.ro show, a method reminiscent of the communist-era Securitate secret police.
“These practices are typical of Putin’s Russia,” Armand wrote on Facebook.
She accused the district police of “creating a secret department to follow” her, and of following orders from the mayor Tudorache who she is running against in Sept. 27 local elections.
She accused Tudorache of using police officers for political purposes.
Armand who was born in the French overseas territory of Guadalupe and is married to a Romanian citizen became a Romanian citizen years ago.
She was one of the founders of the Save Romania Union which later became USR PLUS.
She is currently a local councillor in the first district. Bucharest, a city of more than two million is divided into six districts.
USR PLUS group has been a target of fake videos featuring stereotypical caricatures of members of the gay community pretending to be members of the alliance.
Leaders slammed is as homophobic hoax and blamed the conservative Social Democrats.
