A sex scandal has rocked France’s senate after a female medic reportedly leveraged a sex tape she filmed with a senator in his office to gain favours and make her “untouchable”.

A doctor working at the senate, where the average age is around 60, is said to have complained to human resources about his medical assistant and requested her dismissal last October, according to Le Canard Enchaîné.

However, when he informed her of his intentions, the assistant reportedly told him she was “untouchable” and “protected by a “very influential senator”.

She then allegedly produced “unequivocal” footage she said she had shot of her having sex with the unnamed senator in his office “with his trousers around his ankles”, warning the doctor she could “get anyone I like fired”.

According to Le Canard, the senate president Gérard Larcher was made aware of the tape, sent to him by the senate’s secretary general after he had received a complaint from the doctor but did nothing for three months.

When the Senate finally acted, instead of sanctioning the assistant, the upper chamber launched “dismissal proceedings without notice or compensation” against the doctor, who they accused of “providing paid outside services”. 

However, the Senate’s disciplinary office made no mention of his status as a witness in the sex tape affair.

Le Canard said that the doctor did not wish to comment on the matter, nor did his lawyer. Mr Larcher also declined to comment.

According to Le Canard, the assistant was directly imposed on the doctor by the senator involved in the sex tape and was said to have benefited from favours in the form of a 45 per cent pay rise.

It comes three months after 66-year-old senator Joel Guerriau was accused of spiking a female MP Sandine Josso’s champagne with ecstasy at his home in order to carry out a sexual assault.

Ms Josso, 48, is a centrist with the Modem party, which is part of president Emmanuel Macron’s parliamentary alliance.

Last month, she addressed parliament and beseeched the government to do more to fight date rape and “better understand this phenomenon and at last find a way to bring all victims out of oblivion”.

Mr Guerriau, a centre-Right member of the Horizons party and a Macron ally, has been suspended from the group.

He faces charges of “administering to a person, without their knowledge, a substance likely to impair their discernment or control over their actions to commit rape or sexual assault”, as well as possession of banned substances.

He denies wrongdoing.