Patrick Poivre d’Arvor was heard by the police in July as part of a preliminary investigation opened in December 2021, following two complaints, one for rape, the other for sexual assault, learned franceinfo from a judicial source , Monday, September 19. A woman accuses the journalist of having raped her in a room during the Cannes Film Festival in 1985. The other complainant claims that the former presenter of “20 Hours” forcibly kissed her at Club Med in Valmorel (Savoy) in 2013.
Since then, the public prosecutor’s office in Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) has received several complaints, specifies this same source, adding that each new complainant is heard by the police officers of the Brigade for the repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP), in charge of the investigation. Among the complaints received is that of a woman who denounced a rape in the former journalist’s office in 1995, when she was 24 years old at the time.
The writer Bénédicte Martin, who gives an interview to Liberation (article reserved for subscribers) this Monday, also filed a complaint on September 12, for a sexual assault which allegedly occurred in November 2003, franceinfo learned from the same source, confirming the newspaper’s information. Another writer testified anonymously in the columns of the daily, claiming to have been raped too, in the office of the former presenter. Asked, Jacqueline Laffont, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor’s lawyer, did not respond, but she specifies Release that he disputes all of the facts with which he is charged.
The affair broke out in February 2021 when the writer and journalist Florence Porcel filed a complaint, accusing the ex-host of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009. A preliminary investigation had been carried out for four months by the Nanterre prosecutor’s office and more than 20 women had testified. The majority of the facts denounced being prescribed, the investigation had been closed without further action in June.
At the end of November 2021, Florence Porcel was a civil party in order to cause referral to an investigating judge to investigate again. This judicial investigation had been opened in December for the facts of 2009 only, which was disputed by the defense of the journalist before the chamber of the instruction denouncing a “refusal to inform”.
Last June, the Versailles Court of Appeal ruled in favor of Florence Porcel, ruling that the judicial information must now relate “to all the facts”, including those of 2004. The investigation is ongoing.