PARIS, March 22 — French investigators have charged a former masseur at Paris’s five-star Ritz hotel with raping a woman client, a judicial source said today.

The man has been released under judicial control ahead of a possible trial.

A probe was opened after a 26-year-old woman accused a masseur at the hotel’s spa of "massaging her breasts at length” then raping her "four times” before she was able to "push his hand away” and flee in January, according to a report on the BFMTV news channel confirmed by the Paris prosecutor’s office earlier this month.

The hotel at the time said the man "no longer works for Ritz Paris” and added it was working to provide "all available information” to the authorities.

"The security of our clients and co-workers is vital,” it said. — AFP