Nothing changes then
After this traumatic encounter, Bénédicte Martin gradually realizes that the host’s attitude does not shock anyone and is known to everyone. Published by Flammarion, she talks about it with Frédéric Beigbeder who immediately de-dramatizes and transforms into “knighting” what she experienced as a rape. Welcome to the Middle Ages. Another figure in the house adds a layer of it by learning the story, Michel Houellebecq. “Nothing changes then“, he says on discovering what appears to be one more anecdote about PPDA. Even his publicist brushes aside the seriousness of what she describes, explaining that it is like a “passage obliged”. Asked about this by Release in September 2022, the influential Frédéric Beigbeder admits that the reputation of heavy seducer was well known, but “ignored the rapes“.
In 2005, Bénédicte Martin ran into Patrick Poivre d’Arvor again in the lobby of a hotel. The latter remembers the circumstances of their previous interview but obviously did not experience the same thing. He offers her to resume their antics “where they were“, while she has a child asleep on her lap. Suddenly awakened, he cries, like what the writer could have done inwardly. Since then, the writer has continued her career and became the mother in 2007 of a boy, Clotaire, born of her relationship with Jean-Paul Rouve from whom she is now separated.
Testimonies follow one another in the PPDA affair and each has its share of horrors, between repetitions of situations and chilling details. The idea that he was able to talk about one of his children – he is 7 – Solenn, during his exchanges with the alleged victims, would show how much he was able to normalize his actions, registering them in a staggering banality . Another woman quoted by Release recounts how she was invited to visit his office and to see the photo of his daughter which is framed there. Before saying that she was raped there.
Patrick Poivre d’Arvor is presumed innocent of the charges against him until the case is finally closed.