PPDA case: two new complaints for rape and sexual assault

Europe 1 with AFP 9:40 p.m., December 10, 2021

The former star of the TF1 television news, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, is targeted by two new complaints, for rape and for sexual assault, the lawyer for the two complainants said on Friday, confirming information from TF1.

According to lawyer Laure Heinich, the rape complaint was filed Thursday: a woman accuses PPDA of having raped her in a room during the Cannes Film Festival in 1985 when she was in her twenties.

The other complaint, for sexual assault, was filed three days ago: a woman accuses PPDA of having forcibly kissed her in a Club Med in Valmorel, in Savoie, in 2013, when she was 23 years old.

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No complaint at the time because of "the stature of the aggressor"

Complaints denounce prescribed facts.

These women "file a complaint in solidarity with the others" who have testified against the former presenter "so as not to let it be said that they are 'liars'", explained Me Heinich to AFP, specifying that the two new accusers do not do not know each other.

At the time, they had not lodged a complaint "because of the stature of the aggressor whom they imagined protected", continues Laure Heinich.

When contacted, PPDA's lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, did not respond to AFP's requests.

Writer, journalist, former star presenter of the most watched television news in France, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor was accused in February of rape by the writer Florence Porcel who had lodged a complaint.

She accuses him of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009. Since then, more than twenty women have testified against the former presenter, who disputes all the accusations.

Opening of a new investigation

Following Florence Porcel's complaint in February, a four-month preliminary investigation was conducted by the Nanterre prosecutor's office, during which twenty-three women testified, nine of whom chose to file a complaint for rape, sexual assault or harassment sexual. At the end of June, this preliminary investigation was dismissed by the prosecution, the majority of the charges being time-barred. But in November, Florence Porcel became a civil party in order to bring about a referral to a judge to re-investigate the facts of which she accuses Patrick Poivre d'Arvor. These, not prescribed, had been dismissed for "insufficient evidence".

This procedure almost always leads to the opening of a new investigation entrusted to an examining magistrate, subject to the payment of a deposit.

For the moment, this complaint from Florence Porcel is still at the consignment stage.

A #MeTooMedias association, launched by accusers of PPDA, was created to break the omerta in the French media.