PPDA case: a new complaint for rape and damning testimonies
Patrick Poivre d'Arvor has filed a complaint for slanderous denunciation against 16 women who accuse him of sexual violence or harassment.
© AFP / Archives
Text by: RFI Follow
3 mins
While the former star presenter of TF1 Patrick Poivre d'Arvor is the subject of a new complaint for an alleged rape 27 years ago, France 2 broadcasts this Thursday evening an issue of the magazine Complément d'Enquête with several testimonies overwhelming him .
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In this Supplement to the investigation that AFP was able to view, Mathilde (first name changed), at the origin of the new complaint against the former star presenter of TF1, denounces a rape in the premises of the chain in Boulogne- Billancourt in February 1995. At the time, aged 24, a journalist who had just graduated, she declared that she had been invited to the PPDA office where he allegedly "
kissed
" her then "
tilted on the carpet
".
“
He took off my pants, he took off his pants and he raped me.
I no longer had any reflexes
,” she describes.
The one who is now in her fifties has filed a complaint for rape in Paris.
A complaint however treated by the parquet floor of Nanterre (Hauts-de-Seine) because of the place of the facts, indicated this one Wednesday to AFP, which requested it.
In the show, Mathilde continues: a few days after the first assault, he “
grabbed me by the hair and brought my face close to his penis.
There, I struggled
”.
A complaint of attempted rape has also been filed, according to a source familiar with the matter.
Estelle Youssouffa was a presenter on LCI, TF1's news channel.
The journalist tells #Complementdenquete how PPDA would have been very insistent towards one of her colleagues ⤵️
🔴 PPDA: the fall of an untouchable
📺 Thursday at 11 p.m. on @france2tv pic.twitter.com/Z9PAM3GJNw
— Further investigation (@Cdenquete) April 26, 2022
Complaint for slanderous denunciation
Contacted by AFP, PPDA lawyer Jacqueline Laffont said she did not wish to react.
On Tuesday, the former host had himself filed a complaint with civil action for slanderous denunciation against 16 women who had previously filed a complaint against him for sexual violence or sexual harassment.
► To read also: France: the former TV presenter, Patrick Poivre d'Arvor accused of rape
According to passages published by Franceinfo, he castigates the "
lot of excesses and excesses
" of the #MeToo social movement.
He also describes "
a return of puritanism and censorship, cleverly adorned with the supposed protection of women
".
In his eyes, the 16 accusers are women "
rejected or ignored
", nourishing a "
bitterness which leads them to commit, out of belated revenge, the crime of slanderous denunciation
".
For Emmanuelle Dancourt, journalist at BFM TV, president of the #MeTooMédias association, who says she herself was a victim of the presenter, it is above all the notoriety of PPDA that protected her for so long.
“
He was the locomotive of TF1.
Ten million viewers
is enormous, we forgive a lot of things with figures like that and above all we don't see, we don't want to see, we are in denial.
That's PDDA impunity
, ”she testifies at the microphone of RFI.
She also adds that if many victims did not speak earlier, it is also because they were in a hierarchical relationship with the star journalist of TF1.
"
We thought we were at fault, that we had done something wrong, so I didn't even think of filing a complaint
," she concludes.
I am one of the 16 women against whom PPDA dares to file a complaint for slanderous denunciation.
Good news !
We are going to have a trial, we who were deprived of it for prescription!
Eye to eye Patrick...
— Emmanuelle DANCOURT (@EmmaDancourt) April 27, 2022
“
Gag procedure
”
Hélène Devynck, one of the women targeted by the PPDA complaint, sees it as a "
gag procedure
" which "
makes the victims the culprits
", and is based on "
domination by money
": "
we do n't
'doesn't necessarily have all the means to afford lawyers
,' she told AFP on Wednesday.
The rape complaint of Ms. Devynck, journalist and screenwriter, had been dismissed in June 2021 for prescription.
“
I am waiting for this gag procedure
(of slanderous denunciation)
to turn into a trial and for us all to be able to take the stand.
"It's going to be hard to make 16 women look like they're lying
," she said.
The case broke out in February 2021 when the writer and journalist Florence Porcel filed a complaint against Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, accusing him of having forced him to have sex in 2004 and fellatio in 2009. A preliminary investigation had been carried out for four months by the Nanterre prosecutor's office and 23 women had testified.
The majority of the facts denounced being prescribed, the investigation had been closed without further action in June.
(
With
AFP)
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