Veteran French anchorman and writer Patrick Poivre d'Arvor denies allegations of rape and sexual assault
Credit: PIERRE VERDY/AFP
Ten women have accused one of France’s best-known news anchormen of rape, sexual assault or harassment in the latest such scandal to rock the country.
Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, 73, a journalist and novelist who presented the evening news on the TF1 network for 21 years and also hosted arts programmes, has denied the allegations.
Last month, Florence Porcel, a writer, claimed that he raped her in 2004 and forced her to have oral sex in 2009.
Prosecutors began an investigation when Ms Porcel, 37, made a complaint a month after she published a novel describing her alleged ordeal.
The book does not name Poivre d’Arvor, known to most French as PPDA, whose evening news programme was regularly watched by eight million viewers and whose nickname among journalists was the Sun King.
The statute of limitations bars prosecution over the alleged 2004 offence but the alleged 2009 incident could lead to criminal charges.
Florence Porcel has filed charges of rape against former journalist television star Patrick Poivre d'Arvor
Credit: MARTIN BUREAU/AFP
Mr Poivre d’Arvor called her claims “fantasy” and defamation. François Binet, his lawyer, said his client was “revolted by the way he is being used to promote a novel”.
On Tuesday, Le Monde published a front-page article gathering testimony from ten women with similar allegations. The paper said that "at least three" had accused Mr Poivre d’Arvor of rape during questioning by police.
Former presenter Hélène Devynck, 54, who was his assistant from 1991 to 1993, said that given his huge power at the channel to hire and fire employees, “it was unthinkable not to be coerced into sex”.
“I gave in. But with clenched teen and stifled tears. It was truly humiliating,” she told Le Monde.
“I had no choice, otherwise I was out of a job. When I wanted to stop working with him, he was vexed and cruel and went and told the editorial team I was useless.” The editors ousted her and she went to work for a sister rolling news channel LCI.
Given his huge celebrity at the time, she said: “To speak out would have been professionally and socially suicidal. I wasn’t…There was such a misbalance (of power), I would have ended up the whore and he the seducer.”
However, she expressed regret, saying: “My silence helped build a wall of omnipotence and impunity.”
She has testified to police probing the Porcel complaint. Eight other women have made similar allegations to investigators, according to Le Monde.
One said he had an “industrial system” in place at TF1 in which he would systematically ask female employees: “Are you in a couple? Are you faithful?”
"It even became his nickname,” one alleged victim told the paper.
However, a number of women and former colleagues came out in Mr Poivre d’Arvor’s defence.
Marie-Hélène Mille, his longtime assistant, said: “I’ve been working with (him) for 32 years every day in the office next door, with the door often open. I have never been victim or witness to the behaviour some claim he has shown today.”
Poivre d’Arvor this month told Le Quotidien: “This behaviour where there are little kisses on the neck, sometimes little compliments, or sometimes charm and seduction, is no longer accepted by the younger generations. If you want my opinion, I regret it.”
His lawyer said: “He has never imposed any act whatsoever or a forced relationship and denies any accusation making allegations of non-consensual acts.”
France has been rocked by a high-profile incest scandal involving political scientist Olivier Duhamel
Credit: JOEL SAGET/AFP
The case comes after a spate of scandals in which women have high-profile men of sexual abuse and incest sometimes decades after the alleged events.
The most explosive involves Olivier Duhamel, 70, a powerful political scientist and broadcaster, who was accused in January by Camille Kouchner, his stepdaughter, of sexually abusing her twin brother when he was a young teenager in the late 1980s. The brother has filed a complaint with prosecutors.
Mr Duhamel has issued no denials and has resigned from all his posts.
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