“I clearly asked myself the question of my participation in this program this evening, because of the opening of an investigation by the justice following a complaint lodged against Mr. Bourdin for attempted sexual assault”. On January 18, when releasing the BFM-TV program devoted to the presidential election, Valérie Pécresse revealed her embarrassment: how to respond calmly to a journalist under investigation for attempted sexual assault when one pretends to defend the cause of women? This live humiliation will remain as the symbolic end of the career of Jean-Jacques Bourdin: the Altice group announced, Friday June 17, “put an end to the employment contract of Mr. Jean-Jacques Bourdin and thus cease all collaboration”. A pithy sentence which concludes twenty-one years of presence at the microphone of RMC first – since 2001 –, then RMC and BFM-TV then – since 2007.
It was during a business trip to Calvi in 2013 that the star presenter tried to kiss the complainant Fanny Agostini, who was then working for the channel. A few days later, on February 17, 2022, another woman, who has remained anonymous to this day, had in turn filed a complaint for sexual assault, harassment and sexual exhibition, facts which she dated from 1988. Both times, Jean -Jacques Bourdin had disputed the reality of these accusations and the complaints had been closed, not because the facts were not proven (no investigation was carried out), but because they were prescribed. For its part, however, the management of NextradioTV had launched an internal investigation, in order to collect possible testimonies against the journalist.
According to an internal source, this would not have brought out the need to initiate proceedings against Jean-Jacques Bourdin. On the other hand, “behaviours as described in press articles” would have convinced the Altice group to do without the services of its star presenter for good. Testimonials collected by The world describe, for example, the (former) use of his professional Twitter account, partly managed by collaborators, for purposes of seduction of which no one should have known. Everyone knew, moreover, that his name was mentioned in the Carlton file, this pimping case involving in particular Dominique Strauss-Kahn. Many of his colleagues, however, testified to a working climate ” nice “ with the morning worker. While he had left RTL for a few months, where he had notably presented The listeners have the floorJean-Jacques Bourdin had been the centerpiece of the revival of RMC by Alain Weill, after its takeover in 2001.
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