After having mentioned the sexual assaults of which she was the victim in her book Pandorini, then having lodged a complaint for rapes against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, the writer Florence Porcel decided to come out of the silence in the columns of the Parisian. A month after the start of the PPDA affair, which caused a real earthquake in the media sphere, the 37-year-old young woman agreed to return to her successive meetings with the former star of the newspaper of 20 Hours of TF1 – that she accuses of having raped her in 2004 and 2009. If Patrick Poivre d’Arvor had defended himself by declaring that he “nothing had ever happened ” with Florence Porcel, who according to him would have done “a fixation” on her person, the complainant delivers a chilling testimony to our colleagues.
On November 8, 2004, during her very first face-to-face meeting with the journalist, 36 years her senior, Florence Porcel allegedly suffered a first assault. Student at the time and victim of a “psychological hold ” according to her words, she does not realize the gravity of the situation. “Denial is when you know what happened, but you can’t admit it to yourself or else collapse, so the brain goes into survival mode. Deep inside, I already feel a sense of anger and unease. But I prefer to tell myself that I had a beautiful experience, that I am in love”, says the writer, who understood the reality of things after psychotherapy, fourteen years after the fact.
“It’s a way for me to try to regain control of things”
In this interview with Parisian, Florence Porcel also evokes an agreed relationship with Patrick Poivre d’Arvor. “In 2008, four years later, I return to his office and we do have a consensual relationship”, She confirms before explaining the reason: “It’s a way for me to try to take back control of things, the thread of my life. I am not aware at that time of this inner conflict in me. ” And when our colleagues ask her what she would answer to “Those who might find it surprising that a victim returns to see his attacker”, the young woman repeats: “In my case, I did not know that I had been the victim of rape. I did not come out of this denial until 2018, thanks to psychotherapy… ”
Florence Porcel then took the opportunity to recall the importance of stopping blaming the victims rather than the perpetrators of sexual assault. “The subject should be: why this famous man invites a student 36 years his junior to his workplace, dangling advice on getting published, in fact forcing her to have sex? I often hear the following questions: why have women entered the suite?Harvey Weinstein ? Why is she seeing her attacker again? Why does she stay married if her husband rapes her? This is the wrong question. Whatever the context, nothing can justify a man raping a woman ”, she continues.
Finally, Florence Porcel recounts the last rape she allegedly suffered at the hands of Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, in 2009. An act of which she had this time “consciousness” : “He prevented me from freeing myself from the corner where he blocked me despite my repeated requests, I told him no on several occasions, there was never any doubt that it was rape. ” Today, the writer only hopes for one thing: that the former presenter of the JT “answer for his actions before justice ”. It is the Nanterre public prosecutor’s office, which opened an investigation, which will decide.
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