Benjamin Griveaux, who ran for the top office in France’s capital with Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, announced he was withdrawing his candidacy. He said he decided to pull out of the race to protect himself and his family from further below-the-belt attacks.

“For over a year, my family and I have been subjected to defamatory statements, lies, anonymous attacks, exposure of secret private conversations, as well as death threats,” the 42-year-old married father of two said in a short statement. He added that the publication of sex tapes, which he considered an “ignoble attack” on his private life, was the last straw.

The now ex-candidate would neither confirm nor deny the authenticity of the materials leaked on Tuesday. His announcement comes after an emergency meeting with President Macron on Wednesday and just a month before municipal elections in France, which are scheduled for March 15 and 22. Even before the sex scandal his campaign was floundering, with Griveaux slumping in the polls and projected to take third place in first round of the vote.

The attack that put an end to Griveaux’s run was launched by Pyotr Pavlensky, a controversial Russian artist who has been living in France since 2017 after claiming he had to flee his home country due to political persecution. He accused Griveaux of being a hypocrite, running on a platform of family values while privately considering marriage a “prison” and sending intimate pictures to young women.

The accusations were backed by what were claimed to be conversations between the politician and an unidentified female, complete with sexually explicit images. There is no evidence that Griveaux was actually involved in the conversation.

Pavlensky gained international notoriety thanks to a series of politically charged performances in Russia, which involved harming himself. During his big debut in 2012 he sewed his mouth shut in a gesture of support for fellow anti-government activists Pussy Riot. Another performance involved him getting naked and nailing his scrotum to the pavement of the Red Square.

The artist fled Russia after he and his partner were accused of sexually assaulting a woman, an allegation that he insisted was a fabrication. The French authorities granted him political asylum – but were less welcoming of his political performances.

In October 2017 he set the doors to the Bank of France on fire to protest against “tyranny” and encourage a new revolution. He was arrested and spent more than a year in pre-trial detention before being sentenced to three years suspended and a fine, which he reportedly proclaimed he would never pay.

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