Pierre Ménès confirms his departure from Canal +

Pierre Ménès will not return to Canal +: sidelined at the end of March after accusations of sexual assault, the star columnist of the

announced to AFP that he had found a financial agreement with the encrypted channel, putting an end to almost 12 years of collaboration.

The agreement, the amount of which is "strictly confidential", was concluded on July 1, as revealed by

, Pierre Ménès told AFP, refuting having considered bringing the case before the prud ' men. 

"I was the one who asked to leave"

"It is not a dismissal, it is I who asked to leave", he assured. Solicited by AFP, Canal + had not confirmed this information Monday morning. "I did not see myself coming back to the air with certain people who let go of me in a despicable way", he explains, also citing "the vagueness which surrounds the rights of Ligue 1", of which the encrypted channel has announced to withdraw after the sensational entry of Amazon on the market.

Long untouchable, the former journalist of

has been in turmoil since the broadcast on March 21 on Canal + of a documentary on sexism in sports newsrooms and the revelation of incriminating sequences, cut during editing at the request of the chain, suspected of having protected him. Pierre Ménès is notably accused of having lifted, off the air, in 2016, the skirt of Marie Portolano, journalist and co-director of the documentary. He claims not to remember it, due to serious health problems at the time.

He is also criticized for having forcibly kissed columnists on television shows.

Facts that took place before the #MeToo wave, from which "we can no longer say anything, we can no longer do anything", he lamented in Cyril Hanouna's show on C8.

Removed from the air at the end of March

Despite the "deep regrets" then expressed, these accusations cost him his collaboration with the Fifa game, to which he lent his voice.

On the Canal + side, an internal investigation was launched, the results of which are not yet known, and he was dismissed from the air at the end of March, "by mutual agreement", according to him.

"If Canal had been able to fire me for serious misconduct, they would not have been embarrassed," argues the columnist, known for his flowery and sometimes sexist comments. In eleven years of collaboration, he says he was summoned only once in 2018 to take it easy on his "thoughts", and to have received a warning last year for an interview given, without authorization, on YouTube.

After being discreet, at the request of his employers, the "sniper" ended his "media diet" and resumed tweeting for the Euro.

And to denounce "a form of relentlessness", "a media surge" disproportionate, in view of other recent cases related to sexual assault.

"I did nothing (...) there is no complaint, no judicial investigation," insists the one who says he has since suffered from depression and suffers grossophobic attacks and death threats on social networks.

He plans to launch an online platform

The shock wave generated by Marie Portolano's documentary was felt in other editors, such as Radio France, where an internal investigation was launched.

The journalist, who now works on M6, deplores the "manhunt" targeting Pierre Ménès, not "guilty", according to her, of "all sexism in France".

"I wouldn't say that she broke my career because I'm going to show everyone that I'm not dead, but she still gave me a hell of a blow," said her former colleague. 

For the start of the school year, he plans, at 58, to launch his own online platform, always in connection with the middle of the round ball.