PPDA case: seven victims testify with their faces uncovered in "Liberation"

Louise Bernard with Alexis Patri 09:42 am, November 09, 2021

He wanted names and faces.

They make Tuesday the front page of 

.

Eight women testify on a daily basis and explain having suffered sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape by journalist Patrick Poivre D'Arvor, former star of the 20 hours of TF1.

The faces of four of them appear on the front page, accompanied by the title "PPDA Case: They Accuse".

Inside the newspaper, they are seven out of eight to testify with their faces uncovered, with their name and their photo. 

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The eight women describe precisely how the acts of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape allegedly unfolded.

Most describe a similar process, after the 8 p.m. newspaper, in the presenter's office in the premises of TF1.

They are all among the 23 women who testified before police investigators a few months ago.

A response to the presenter

The preliminary investigation had to be closed without follow-up, because almost all of the facts denounced are time-barred. For Florence Porcel, who lodged a complaint for rape and whose facts are not prescribed, the elements collected did not make it possible to categorically confirm her words. According to

, the journalist is preparing to file a new complaint with the constitution of a civil party, in order to reopen the investigation. 

If these women testify today with their faces uncovered in the press, it is in response to the interview with Patrick Poivre D'Arvor in the

, last March.

The former star of the 8 pm regretted that the testimonies are "only anonymity, always anonymity".

"Never a person who dares to come, eye to eye, tell me 'No, it was not good'", he had indicated in front of Yann Barthès.

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  Florence Porcel testifies for the first time after her rape complaint against PPDA

"A sexual predator abusing his notoriety"

Eight of the 23 women therefore decided to describe at length to the newspaper

, as they did to the police a few months ago, the sexual violence they allegedly suffered. The daily reports that, in the final police report, the investigator would have concluded: "These testimonies describe Patrick Poivre d'Arvor as a sexual predator abusing his notoriety and using a similar modus operandi in the approach of his victims and in the brutality of his acts, committed without the slightest attempt at seduction, nor the slightest consideration towards the women who dared to refuse his advances ".

Patrick Poivre D'Arvor was contacted by the newspaper, to which he recalled that a "favorable" court decision had been given to him.

He denounces the publication of this article by speaking of "attempt to circumvent the media of a judicial decision which [to him] seems regrettable, worrying and dangerous".