District Prosecutor Marie-Suzanne Le Queau said the investigation is against junior Civil Service Minister Georges Tron, who is also mayor of the Paris suburb of Draveil.
“If the facts are established, these could be the charges,” she said.
One of the woman was quoted by a newspaper as saying she was inspired to come forward by the attempted rape charges against ex-IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn, a case that has prompted widespread soul-searching in France about whether powerful men have been allowed to harass women without consequences. The paper said the women were aged 32 and 34.
Le Parisien newspaper quoted Tron as saying the complainants were disgruntled former employees motivated by a personal vendetta.
Tron, 53, a member of President Nicolas Sarkozy’s right-wing UMP party, joined the government in 2010. Tron’s lawyer, Olivier Schwerb, did not immediately return a call seeking comment. French media quoted him as saying he planned to file a slander complaint against the women.
The plaintiffs’ lawyer, Gilbert Collard, also could not immediately be reached for comment.
The arrest of Strauss-Kahn came as a profound shock in France, where media avoid reporting on the private lives of the famous. Strauss-Kahn had a reputation as an aggressive womanizer, but it did not make the news.
Some have asked whether this respect for privacy has helped foster a culture in which sexual harassment goes unpunished.
Since Strauss-Kahn’s arrest on May 14, other women have come forward with allegations against him of inappropriate behavior, including writer Tristane Banon, who says Strauss-Kahn sexually assaulted her in 2002.
