Patrick Poivre d’Arvor is once again in turmoil. November 8, 2021, Release highlighted the accusations of eight women, including seven who testified openly. They claim to have been victims of sexual assault and rape by the former presenter of TF1’s 20-hour newscast. Asked about the subject by Star TV (edition of this Monday, November 22), Charles Villeneuve wanted to defend the ex of Claire Chazal.
The former presenter of Right to Know is convinced, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor is innocent. “I saw him quite often because he was one of the creators of Right to know. If there had been anything, it would be seen. Me, I never saw anything. Claire Chazal has never seen anything. Jean-Pierre Pernaut either. Michèle Cotta pointed out to me that she had been director of information (at TF1) and that she then had Patrick Poivre d’Arvor as the presenter of the 8pm. We knew who was in front of his office, who was going to see him. We never noticed a permanent assault on his part on the ladies who visited him“, he explains first of all.
Charles Villeneuve then stressed that the case, which was launched by Florence Porcel in February 2021, had been closed after four months of investigation. “It’s everyday Release who came back to it with testimonials. The prosecution will investigate, we’ll see. But personally, I have never seen Patrick Poivre d’Arvor in this position“, continued the columnist of Europe 1 (The Specimens, The Debate of the Great Voices). The 80-year-old man is outraged to see how the case has been revived, when justice had already decided. This is “slanderous denunciation“.”He saw it very badly“, he concludes.
As a reminder, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor (74 years old) was accused of rape by the writer Florence Porcel (38 years old). She had denounced non-consensual intercourse in 2004 in her office. And she assured that he had imposed a fellatio on her in 2009 at the headquarters of the production company A Prime Group. The preliminary investigation had been entrusted to the Brigade for the repression of personal delinquency (BRDP) of the Paris judicial police following his complaint. Seven other complaints had followed and twenty-three testimonies denouncing a very precise modus operandi: an invitation to 8 p.m. then in the office of the former presenter of the first channel where the facts of which he was accused took place.
Last March, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor came to defend himself in Day-to-day, on TMC. And in June 2021, the Nanterre prosecutor’s office indicated that the investigation against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor for rapes was dismissed for “prescription” or for “insufficient evidence”.