The management of the Altice Media group (BFM-TV, RMC) announced on Friday June 17 that it would cease all collaboration with journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, 73, who has been off the air since January after the opening of an investigation for sexual assault, filed for prescription.
“Due to the events that occurred and were brought to the attention of management during the year 2022”this one has “decided to terminate Mr. Jean-Jacques Bourdin’s employment contract and thus cease all collaboration”she said in a statement.
The group had launched an internal investigation in mid-January, after learning “through the press” that his journalist was the subject of a complaint for “sexual assaultthe “.
In the process, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced the opening of an investigation, in the midst of the presidential campaign, precipitating the suspension of the antenna of the journalist, who “still strongly contested” any sexual violence.
Two complaints
About a month later, his colleague Fanny Agostini, former weather presenter of BFM-TV-RMC, then passed by “Thalassa”, had revealed to Mediapart to be at the origin of this complaint filed for attempted sexual assault.
According to her, the facts would have occurred in Corsica in October 2013. In her complaint, she said that Mr. Bourdin had “grab the neck”had “bring his face closer” of his and had ” try to [l’]kiss repeatedly »without ” to arrive at “in the swimming pool of a hotel in Calvi (Haute-Corse).
She would have “debated” and managed to get out of the pool. Mr. Bourdin would then have said: “I always get what I want”, “a threat from someone who had a hierarchical ascendancy” according to her.
Then he would send her “for several months” insistent emails and text messages, according to the now 33-year-old journalist, who says she has “been constantly in fear” until his departure from the group in 2017.
In mid-February, a second woman had filed a complaint for sexual assault, harassment and sexual exhibition, accusing Mr. Bourdin of facts that occurred in the late 1980s. The investigation was closed in April due to prescription of the facts, the period in this respect being six years.
“I denounce the public instrumentalization of this procedure and deplore the serious attacks that have been made on my personal life and my professional life”had then reacted the journalist.