#JeNeSuisPasUneSalope, #MenesOut, # BalanceTonPorc… The broadcast of the documentary "I am not a slut, I am a journalist" by Marie Portolano, Sunday March 21 on Canal +, caused a rain of reactions on social networks, both by its content , which reveals the extent of sexism reigning in the world of sports journalism, but also by the fact that the channel belonging to Vincent Bolloré is accused of having censored the documentary to protect its star columnist, Pierre Ménès.

In this documentary, Marie Portolano, a former Canal + journalist leaving for M6, traces more than 40 years of struggle for parity in this very masculine sector, between condescending looks, remarks on the physique, harassment, and even sexual assault.

Many female figures from the community follow one another to testify, from Nathalie Iannetta to Clémentine Sarlat via Estelle Denis.

I'm not the best to talk about it ☺️ but it's Sunday at 6 p.m. on @canalplus and I'm very proud to have completed this project.

Thanks to the co-director @GuillaumePriou 💛 https://t.co/nVYjAL79d7

- marie portolano (@marieportolano) March 17, 2021

The documentary is globally hailed as a necessary testimony.

In parallel, Le Monde publishes a column: "To no longer be discriminated against, harassed, invisible, as told in the documentary by Marie Portolano 'I am not a slut', broadcast this Sunday, March 21 on Canal +, and as denounced some of our sisters a year ago, it is time for us, women sports journalists, to count ourselves, to unite and to weigh ", affirm the 150 co-signatory journalists.

"No more than any other field, sport belongs only to men. We want to have a front row seat to tell, to comment, to analyze, to lead. We want women to be better represented in sports media, more protected, more valued. They should also be more numerous, because being more in the editorial staff will, in part, make it possible to put an end to sexism. "

"In 2021, the treatment of sport by men for men about men is no longer bearable", concludes the forum.

>> To see: "Mélina Boetti: 'Football has become truly universal since women have played it'"

Cut sequences

The impact of the documentary could have stopped there, on this already alarming observation.

However, the site Les Jours quickly reveals that Canal + has censored part of the documentary featuring its star journalist, Pierre Ménès.

In August 2016, at the end of a program on the "Canal Football Club", the columnist would have lifted Marie Portolano's skirt before grabbing her buttocks, "off the air but in front of the public", affirms the online media.

Facts partly disputed by Pierre Ménès, who only admitted to having raised the skirt of the journalist.

The other case concerns his colleague Isabelle Moreau, forcibly kissed on the mouth by Pierre Ménès to "celebrate" the hundredth, in 2011, of the "Canal Football Club", a scene still present on social networks.

"In the initial version" of the documentary, Marie Portolano shows these images "to Isabelle Moreau on a tablet, who, seeing them again, bursts into tears".

A sequence cut at "the request of the sports direction of Canal +", says the site.

Likewise, a sequence in which Marie Portolano confronts Pierre Ménès with Isabelle Moreau's tears and his own aggression has been deleted.

In it, the sports journalist refers his acts to "rooming" linked to "his character" and claims not to remember the sequence of the skirt.

Also passed to the ace all the scenes of the documentary leaving the floor to men, in this case Thomas Villechaize, journalist at BeIn Sports, and especially Hervé Mathoux, witness to the acts committed by Pierre Ménès on Marie Portolano, who displayed his regrets not having reacted.

Contacted by Les Jours, the management of Canal + declined to comment.

Act of contrition by Pierre Ménès

The revelations are like an explosion on social networks.

Associated with calls for the departure of the host of the Canal Football Club, the hashtag #MenesOut is gaining momentum.

Additional facts are unearthed, such as a tweet by Aude Gogny-Goubert reproaching Pierre Ménès for having had inappropriate words, or a sequence showing the columnist forcibly kissing journalist Francesca Antoniotti in the program "Touche pas à mon sport ", on D8 (ex-C8), in 2016.

Said the guy who, in the middle of the TV show I was working on, told me: "Hey, you're in leather! You're a bitch" ...

- Aude Gogny-Goubert (@AudeGG) February 12, 2019

"Kissing someone by force / by surprise, 'grabbing their buttocks' ... on a TV set, in transport, at work, whatever the context, it is a sexual assault punishable by law ", tweeted Monday in reaction Camille Chaize, on his account of spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior.

🔴 Kissing someone by force / by surprise, "grabbing the buttocks" ... On a TV set, in transport, at work, whatever the context, it is a matter of sexual assault punishable by law.

#JeNeSuisPasUneSalope


Pour ne #RienLgezPasser


➡️https: //t.co/29GLdVCcrH pic.twitter.com/kQnB2wLUTE

- Spokesperson for the Ministry of the Interior (@PorteParoleMI) March 22, 2021

Faced with the outcry, Pierre Ménès is summoned to react.

According to a second article of the Days, the director of the antennas of Canal + then offers him to go and explain himself in the program "Touche pas à mon poste" by Cyril Hanouna Monday evening on C8, sister channel of the Canal + group.

The chronicler complies, forced to speak "his truth" and to make an act of contrition.

The passage cut in the documentary is also broadcast.

Calling himself the object of a "surge of hatred", Pierre Ménès agrees that he "may not have stolen it". He expresses his "deep regrets", believing that "all that (him) is criticized is intolerable in the software of 2021 ".

Discover the exclusive images that were not shown in the documentary #JeNeSuisPasUneSalope.



Pierre Ménès reacts in #TPMP.

pic.twitter.com/me4Kq3j7IG

- TPMP (@TPMP) March 22, 2021

"I will never be caught doing things like that", he says, regretting all the same in passing that since the emergence of the #MeToo movement, "we can no longer say anything, we can no longer do anything. ".

In the same program, invited alongside Pierre Ménès, the columnist Francesca Antoniotti explains for her part having experienced the forced kiss "as a humiliation", more than as a sexual assault.

After the replay of the sequence in question, Pierre Ménès admits that "these images are scandalous".

A crisis communication exercise which, however, hardly convinced.

Malaise at Canal +

The Minister of Citizenship, Marlène Schiappa, is indignant Tuesday morning "that a sports journalist takes advantage of his notoriety and live to carry out a sexual assault and then claim the lack of humor of his victims to legitimize his actions" .

Could the controversy lead to the departure of one of the most famous faces of the French audiovisual landscape?

Many doubt it.

In a 20 Minutes survey, an anonymous source within Canal + believes that Pierre Ménès has been protected for a long time by his management: "You should know that the majority of his actions have been denounced internally, but always minimized or hushed up by the various Strata of management, she explains. He is very influential and protected. And he has been since at least 2015. The censorship of the documentary is the ultimate proof of that. "

For its part, Canal + chose the daily L'Équipe for its defense: "There was no censorship but respect for our editorial line […]. We did not want a big unpacking. There are newspapers for that, to investigate, but it's not us. "

Contacted by AFP, Marie Portolano declined to comment on the outcry triggered by her documentary.

She tweeted on Sunday: "The main thing is the voice of women, which has been fully respected by Canal +. Please do not forget that."

Still, this affair can only accentuate the discomfort existing in the sports department of Canal + since the dismissal of the historical commentator Stéphane Guy, for having paid tribute to the comedian Sébastien Thoen, dismissed after a sketch parodying a program of another channel from Vincent Bolloré.

The signatories of a petition in support of the two men are also in the sights of the management.

The main thing is the word of women which has been fully respected by @canalplus Please do not forget it.

Kisses to everyone and EVERYONE 😂❤️

- marie portolano (@marieportolano) March 21, 2021

Marie Portolano's documentary also concludes with her very strong words: "I hope I have contributed to free speech; the fight will be won when it becomes useless to make a film of it."

Or an article.

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