In their eyes, we read the determination to see their alleged attacker answer for his actions.
Shocked by the discontinuation of the Patrick Poivre d'Arvor affair, eight women testify in Liberation this Tuesday on their behalf, including seven with their faces uncovered.
They thus respond to Patrick Poivre d'Arvor who declared on March 3 on the set of the Quotidien program: “All this, only anonymity, always anonymity.
Never a person (dares) to come, eye to eye, to say to me:
No, that was not good
».
These eight women are among the 23 people interviewed by investigators accusing Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, who firmly denies, of rape, sexual assault and sexual harassment since February 18, 2021, date of the start of the case.
"It was abrupt, suddenly, fast"
Beyond the acts, the testimonies, chilling, evoke the modus operandi that the former television star would have used to commit his misdeeds and in particular the abuse of power.
“It was abrupt, suddenly, quick.
I weighed 30 kg, I was anorexic, ”declares for example Stéphanie Khayat, a 51-year-old journalist, in the columns of the daily, who claims to have suffered two rapes in the PPDA office.
"Very quickly, I make the decision not to go to editorial conferences where everything is decided", declares Cécile Delarue, journalist and author of 43 years who tells how she did to avoid it, even if it means saying goodbye to certain ambitions.
To read also “Pandorini”, the book which accuses PPDA… without naming it
In other testimonies, it emerges from sinister details like this “intercom” or “loudspeaker” by which PPDA would have invited his collaborators to join him in his office, or even the omerta which would have reigned within the drafting.
“Everyone is aware of it and nobody is aware of anything.
We know and we don't know, ”says Cécile Delarue, who says she has been the target of sexual harassment on her part.
“A journalist friend at the time told me shortly after that everyone knew, that it was a well-established process where authors, students, journalists, all kinds of women were invited to the JT before going into his office ”, adds Aude Darlet, employee in an airline company of 48 years which evokes it a sexual assault.
The leaders questioned by Liberation deny having been aware.
A complaint closed for insufficient evidence
Last June, the case was dismissed.
Among the eight complaints (three for "rape" and four for "sexual assault" and "sexual harassment") seven concerned prescribed facts, because having taken place in the 1990s. That of the writer Florence Porcel, the first filed, denouncing a rape allegedly committed in 2009, for "insufficient evidence".
In February 2021, Le Parisien revealed that the latter, a 37-year-old columnist and writer, had filed a complaint against the former presenter of the TF1 JT, with the Nanterre public prosecutor's office.
The procedure had led at the time to an investigation for “rapes” entrusted to the brigade of repression of delinquency against the person (BRDP) of the Parisian PJ and released the word of many women.
"Two women come to testify per day on average", confided at the end of March a close investigator.
In May, around thirty people had already been interviewed by investigators, including women denouncing acts of sexual violence on the part of "Pepper", without however filing a complaint.
To date, 23 women have therefore brought serious charges against Patrick Poivre d'Arvor and eight of them have lodged a complaint, without their procedure succeeding.
The case could nevertheless rebound in the coming weeks because, according to Liberation and according to information that we can confirm, Florence Porcel is preparing to file a complaint with the constitution of civil party.
