“I have never, near or far, frequented Patrice Alègre (…) frequented pimps, nor participated in or organized barbaric evenings”, assures Dominique Baudis, then president of the CSA, to the news of 20 hours of TF1 on May 18, 2003. He wishes to cut short a rumor which begins to spread. The former UDF mayor of Toulouse learned 48 hours earlier that two prostitutes accused him of having been Patrice Alègre’s accomplice. This serial killer from the Toulouse region was sentenced in 2002 to life imprisonment for rape, murder and acts of barbarism. The documentary The Baudis affair, the murderous rumor, broadcast Sunday, October 31 on France 5, deciphers, thanks to numerous testimonies, this extraordinary news item.
Following the intervention of Dominique Baudis on television, the Alègre affair becomes the Baudis affair. François Hollande, then first secretary of the Socialist Party, is the main guest of the 8 p.m. newspaper that evening. “It turns out that the affair, known as Baudis, justifies that Dominique Baudis himself also comes to this newspaper (…) I show him my support (…) and I feel him touched, saddened, overwhelmed even “, confides the former President of the Republic in the documentary.
France then witnessed, dumbfounded, a real media-judicial runaway around this “real republican scandal”. This case splashes police, magistrates and several politicians of the Toulouse region on the basis of questionable testimonies. The documentary sheds a harsh light on the multitude of dysfunctions that punctuate the case. A pack effect wins the media and undermines the presumption of innocence of Dominique Baudis whose intervention on television is far from silencing the rumors. In question: large drops of sweat on his forehead.
“We only remember one thing, his perspiration (…) an expression, for some, of a form of guilt”, confirms journalist Mathieu Aron in the documentary. For months, gendarmes, judges and journalists manhandled Dominique Baudis. The former mayor of Toulouse was finally cleared by justice in 2005 and recounts his ordeal the same year in a book entitled In the face of slander.
The documentary The Baudis affair, the murderous rumor directed by Sophie Palies and Julien Adam, is broadcast on October 31 on France 5 at 10:45 p.m.