The investigation into sexual assault targeting journalist Jean-Jacques Bourdin, which has earned him the ban from BFMTV and RMC since January, has been dismissed for reasons of prescription of the facts.
It was the radio journalist himself who announced the news in a press release sent by his lawyer, Me Christian Saint-Palais. The Paris prosecutor’s office then confirmed that the procedure had been closed on Thursday for “prescription of public action”. The time limit for this is six years.
He denounces “the public instrumentalization” of the case
“I have always firmly contested the facts of which I was accused”, underlined in his press release Jean-Jacques Bourdin. “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,” he added.
The 72-year-old star journalist, known for his offensive interviews, was “temporarily” removed from the air on BFMTV and RMC on January 23, after the announcement, in the middle of the presidential campaign, of the opening of an investigation aimed at him.
On January 18, a few days after Le Parisien revealed a complaint from a former BFMTV-RMC journalist for facts dating back to 2013, the Paris prosecutor’s office indicated that it had opened a preliminary investigation for sexual assault, entrusted to the police station. of the XVIth arrondissement.
Two complaints
About a month later, the journalist Fanny Agostini, former weather presenter of BFMTV-RMC, then passed by Thalassa, had revealed to Mediapart to be at the origin of this complaint filed for attempted sexual assault.
In mid-February, a second woman had filed a complaint for sexual assault, harassment and sexual exhibition, accusing Jean-Jacques Bourdin of events that occurred in the late 1980s.
The Altice Media group, parent company of BFMTV and RMC, indicated that it would make “no comment on a court decision”, specifying however that the internal investigation, launched as soon as the first complaint was revealed, was “still In progress “.