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For the first time, 20 women who accuse PPDA of sexual violence and problematic behavior speak together at Mediapart.
Overwhelming testimonials. this tuesday night at media part20 women who testified against the journalist and presenter Patrick Poivre d’Arvor took the floor to recount the sexual violence or problematic conduct of which they were victims.
At the same time, the investigation site specifies that “Patrick Poivre d’Arvor did not respond” to his request for an interview “in conditions similar to those offered” to the witnesses. Through the voice of his lawyer, he “rejects any violence, sexual or not, against the women who accused him.”
During this program of more than two hours, the complainants from 28 to 63 years old recounted in turns and with emotion their unfortunate experiences in the company of PPDA. Some described acts of sexual harassment, others assaults and even others violations. In their testimonies, many of them described a “modus operandi” common to the journalist: invitations to debate in hotel rooms, or even in his TF1 office.
“I have no shame, shame needs to change sides”
Marie-Laure Eude Delattre, commercial consultant at the Somme, is the first to tell what happened to her in May 1985, when she was 22 years old and was at the Cannes festival. “I have no shame, shame needs to change sides,” she begins this woman first.
“I was a very gallant scholar (…) I found myself facing a man who was famous, who imposed it, who was ugly. I say it bluntly, he was not my type of guy at all.
This woman, who claims “to have said it a lot but not to have been listened to”, assures that she was the victim of a “surprise rape” after being taken to the hotel by the star presenter after a projection one night.
“Until the end I thought I was going to a terrace for a drink,” she confesses, supported by the other women on the Mediapart set. “He is a man who uses himself,” she describes, again her.
Stéphanie Khayat says she went to his office in the TF1 tower “for a professional interview”. “J’étais anorexique, je weighs 30 kg”, se souvient-elle, la voix chargée d’émotion, avant d’ajouter, au bord des larmes: “cinq minutes après être entrée dans son bureau de ella, j’avais son sexe of her dans my mouth”.
The news site also broadcast the video testimony of Armelle Hervieu, a journalist and cameraman, who describes the PPDA as “predatory behavior”, who tried to kiss her after inviting her to his office to talk about their respective daughters’ anorexia.
“He didn’t go any further but he could have if I hadn’t found the strength to say ‘no.’ (…) He saw it as an easy opportunity.” To the accusations of wanting to harm this star of the media world, Armelle Hervieu replies: “What interest would I have in coming out of silence to say that? In fact, I have much more to lose.”
“We are objects, pieces of meat”
Among the testimonies, there is also that of Camille, a 28-year-old administrative consultant in northern France, who recounted the sexual assault she said she suffered in 2013 while working at Club Med. “After some discussion, she offers me to go to chat after lunch. I didn’t see the harm because I couldn’t even imagine him having a sexual life, he was so old for me”, says the young woman who is 23 years old at the time.
Despite numerous refusals, she explains that the journalist followed her to the hotel elevator and then to the lobby. “I had to insist that she go see the companions. It’s not just under pressure, it’s premeditated. His goal was to be alone in the elevator with me,” she recalls.
17 complaints, including 8 for rape
Another woman, Nora Arbelbide, says the journalist followed her to her hotel room in Martinique when she refused his advances. Now that she works in a library, she denies there is an “ounce of seduction” in Patrick Poivre d’Arvor’s approach to her, contrary to what the presenter alleges in her defense. For him, “we are objects, pieces of meat”, she analyzes her.
“Of course he doesn’t even remember me. He played that I was Basque, that I had an accent. There was something fetishized.”
Seventeen women filed a complaint against PPDA, including eight for rape. Sixteen of them, whose complaints were closed in June by prescription, are currently the subject of a PPDA complaint for “slanderous complaint.”
In Nanterre, a judicial investigation is being carried out after the complaint with civil action of the journalist Florence Porcel, who revealed the case in February 2021. At the same time, the prosecution is conducting another investigation into three other complaints. In total, at least 27 women testified against PPDA in the press or in court, including two who were minors at the time of the alleged events.