For two years, the investigation into the Patrick Poivre d’Arvor case seemed to have come to a standstill. It just took an unexpected turn on Monday December 18. The former presenter of the TF1 television news was indicted for rape by a person abusing the authority given to him by his position, committed in 2009 on Florence Porcel, and placed under the status of assisted witness for the facts of 2004. Until then, he had never been indicted in this case.
The two investigating judges of the Nanterre court made this decision following the complaint with the constitution of a civil party filed by the author in November 2021, which generated the opening of a judicial investigation. The first complaint filed by Florence Porcel triggered the opening of a preliminary investigation led by the prosecution. As part of this procedure, 23 women gave their testimonies to the courts concerning dozens of alleged offenses: rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment, between 1985 and 2015, the vast majority perpetrated in the TF1 journalist’s office or at his home.
On June 25, 2021, a dismissal of the case for “insufficient evidence” was pronounced. “There is no evidence to confirm the words of either party regarding the existence of this scene,” wrote Catherine Denis, the former prosecutor of Nanterre, regarding the forced fellatio that the presenter allegedly imposed on the author in 2009 in the premises of a production company in Boulogne-Billancourt (Hauts-de-Seine) . The seven other complaints, three for rape and four for sexual assault and sexual harassment, were also closed and statute-barred.
Fragile architecture
Because from the start, this procedure, considered one of the largest French “#metoo” in terms of the number of facts denounced, has come up against a fragile architecture. The only non-prescribed complaint, that of Florence Porcel, was initially undermined by exchanges of messages entrusted to the presenter by a former friend of the young woman who then included them in the procedure. In these exchanges, Florence Porcel explained the desire she had felt for the journalist before the rape she denounced, but also the suffering she had felt in the face of the violence of the act. A psychological expertise then estimated that the author’s story was “theatricalized”. Finally, a transport of investigators to the premises of the production company, noting discrepancies in the description of the office, made the demonstration of rape too fragile in a criminal court.
You have 50% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.