After a first complaint closed without action in February, the French journalist and writer Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, former presenter of the 8 p.m. newscast on TF1, decided to file a complaint with a civil action for “slanderous denunciation” against of 16 women accusing him of sexual harassment or sexual violence, learned “Complement of investigation”.
The lawyer for “PPDA”, Philippe Naepels, confirmed that he had filed this complaint with the dean of the investigating judges of the Nanterre court this week, before the broadcast in “Complément d’Enquête” on France 2, Thursday April 28, of an investigation devoted to the former presenter of TF1. The complaint was registered on Tuesday.
“For many months, many unfounded accusations have been brought against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. It is time for these accusations to be judged. We cannot accuse falsely and with impunity.”
Philippe Naepels, lawyer for Patrick Poivre d’Arvorat franceinfo
“Since the excitement generated by the #MeToo surge, the freedom of women’s speech has unfortunately had its share of excesses and excesses, and the means implemented to serve this legitimate objective can prove to be perverse and devastating”, denounces Patrick Poivre d’Arvor in his complaint, which “Complementary investigation” and franceinfo were able to consult. Forty-three vitriolic pages that castigate “a return of puritanism and censorship, cleverly adorned with the supposed protection of women”.
In this complaint, the former journalist implicates 16 of the 22 women who testified against him to the Brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP). “Eight of them filed a complaint”recalls the document. “The slightest credit cannot be given to these sixteen women, journalists or writers in search of fame and/or feminists of the last hour, who have come to support a former colleague, a friend, or even a simple activist for the women’s cause”tackles the document against the persons concerned.
And to continue: “Regretting not having benefited from more consideration, even a simple look, from a man they once admired today makes those dismissed or ignored very bitter, a bitterness that led to commit, by belated revenge, the crime of slanderous denunciation. The complaint then returns to each of the accusations of these 16 women, firmly contested by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. The plaintiff cites, for four of them, extracts from correspondence which would have been written after the facts denounced, weakening according to him the version of these women accusing him.
Lawyer Laure Heinich, who defends plaintiffs accusing the former presenter of sexual violence, mentions, in a letter addressed to “Complement of the investigation”, “a complaint for slanderous denunciation in outrageous terms which only overwhelm him”. The implicated “are impatiently waiting to answer and confront him in front of judges, which the prescription forbade them”, she defends.
“Finally, the plaintiffs deplore the feigned ignorance of the process of domination and sexual violence in an attempt to make people believe that there are letters that could be ‘incompatible’.”
Laure Heinich, plaintiffs’ lawyerto France 2
According to the vice-president of the #MeTooMédias association Muriel Reus, former deputy director of TPS, a subsidiary of TF1, who answered questions from “Complement of the investigation”, 15 women have filed a complaint to date against Patrick Poivre d ‘Arvor, including 6 for rape.
The Patrick Poivre d’Arvor affair began in February 2021, when the writer and journalist Florence Porcel filed a complaint against him, accusing him of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009. The journalist then filed a complaint for defamation and slanderous denunciation. The Nanterre prosecutor’s office then conducted a preliminary investigation for four months. The investigation had been closed “without follow-up” in June, as was the complaint by Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. In early November, eight women who had been heard by the courts had testified to Release, accusing the journalist of harassment or sexual violence.
Florence Porcel subsequently filed a civil action with the dean of the investigating judges, leading to the opening of a new investigation. In December, two new complaints, one for rape, the other for sexual assault were also filed against the former presenter, for facts in 1985 and 2013.
With franceinfo, Philippe Naepels announces his intention to file a new complaint for “slanderous denunciation” with civil action against Florence Porcel, at the end of the ongoing investigation into these accusations.