Historian François Durpaire, consultant on BFMTV, was indicted on Thursday for rape. It was an ex-girlfriend who filed a complaint, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Sunday. The facts allegedly occurred in 2011, when the complainant and François Durpaire had a brief relationship.
The historian François Durpaire, consultant on BFMTV, was indicted on Thursday for rape after the complaint of an ex-companion, the Paris prosecutor’s office said on Sunday, confirming information from the Parisian. The academic, who considers the charges “unfounded” according to his lawyer, was placed under judicial supervision.
Facts that would have taken place in 2011
According to a source close to the case who confirmed the information from the Parisian, the facts denounced by the complainant, who had a brief relationship with François Durpaire, took place in May 2011. She claims to have been raped when she came to ask him explanations, writes the daily. In 2020, the two former lovers met again and “agreed on a financial transaction” of 60,000 euros, but the woman changed her mind and then filed a complaint, the newspaper continues.
Contacted by AFP, François Durpaire’s lawyer, Me Dorothée Bisaccia-Bernstein, considered that the opening of this judicial investigation offered her client “the opportunity to express himself in a contradictory way in the face of these accusations”. and stressed that the investigating judges had considered “that he was sufficiently trustworthy to impose a fairly light judicial review on him”. “It is normal and legitimate for women’s voices to be heard, but it is also legitimate for an investigation to be opened to allow the manifestation of the truth,” she added.