"Rude amalgams", "contempt for the adversarial principle", "complacent tribune". In a vitriolic statement published on Wednesday, Gérard Depardieu's lawyers expressed their anger against BFMTV. In question, the broadcast the night before by channel 15 of a sequence giving the floor to three of his accusers in "Le 90 minutes" (from 20:30).
Among them, Charlotte Arnould, whose complaint led to the indictment of the 73-year-old actor for "rape" and "sexual assault". Recorded the day before, his interview of about twenty minutes was broadcast on the air, before the journalist Aurélie Casse interviewed two other women in duplex, Sarah Brooks and Hélène Darras.
The latter are among the 13 people who denounced the behavior of the French actor in an investigation by Mediapart published on April 11. The set of the news channel was completed by three "committed actresses" against sexual violence in the middle of the 7th art.
"They knew we were doing a show on this topic"
This Wednesday, the entire 50-minute sequence is pinned by Gérard Depardieu's lawyers. According to them, Charlotte Arnould would have presented a "deliberately incomplete and false version" of the facts and "her relations" with their client. Guilty of "gross amalgams", BFM would also have offered "a "complacent platform" to his two other accusers, without proposing to the opposing party to speak, "in defiance of the principle of adversarial proceedings". The media court must not replace the judicial institution, "summarize the advice of the star.
"They knew that we were doing a show on this subject," Philippe Corbé, editorial director of BFMTV, said on Wednesday. "Gérard Depardieu's lawyers were solicited by our teams and did not wish to comment," he said. For their part, the respondent's defenders confirm that they refused the broadcaster's invitation to react to Charlotte Arnould's testimony, but say they were not informed of the speech in the wake of Sarah Brooks and Hélène Darras.
Defending the work of his teams, Philippe Corbé also wishes to recall that Guillaume Fabre, journalist Police Justice of BFMTV, present on set Tuesday night, has "put in context" the facts, recalling on air the right of the actor to the presumption of innocence and his formal denial of the facts of which he is accused.