A minister under French President Nicolas Sarkozy has resigned after two former female colleagues said he sexually assaulted them while giving them foot massages.
French officials opened a probe last week against George Tron, a junior civil service minister and mayor of the southern Paris suburb of Draveil, after two women said he sexually assaulted them separately between 2007 and 2010.
Both women said they were inspired to come forward after former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strass-Kahn was accused of attempting to rape a hotel maid in New York earlier this month.
"When I see that a chambermaid was capable of taking on Dominique Strauss-Kahn, I tell myself I don't have the right to stay silent," one of the woman, who was not identified, told Le Parisien newspaper.
"Other women may be suffering what I suffered. I have to help them. We must break this code of silence," she said.
Once prosecutors finish examining the womens' claims, they can decide whether to pursue or drop a case against him.
Tron said he quit because he didn't want to be a burden to the government, but insisted he was innocent.
He slammed the accusations as a "personal vendetta" by the women, who he says were fired from their city jobs for fraud and unfit behavior.
He also took aim at Sarkozy's political rivals, saying they were trying to capitalize on the Strauss-Kahn case.
"I am not naive. They are trying to echo what's happening on the other side of the Atlantic," he told the AFP.
Strauss-Kahn, a member of the Socialist Party, was seen as Sarkozy's main opponent in next year's elections.
Both women, who are 34 and 36, said that the attacks took place while Tron was giving them foot massages at the town hall in Draveil.
Tron is a well-known practitioner of reflexology, a therapeutic treatment that involves massaging certain areas of the feet and hands.
His passion for the technique has earned him the nickname "the foot fetishist" and the "Chinese masseur," and one minister told the The Telegraph that he has massaged "a thousand" women's feet in the past.
A statement from Prime Minister Francois Fillon's office praised Tron for his "courage" and said he was acting in the general interest by quitting.
Tron's lawyer, Olivier Schnerb, said the accusations were "unjust" and that Tron was considering suing the women for "malicious slander."
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