PARIS — Prosecutors in France have opened an investigation into rape accusations towards one particular of the country’s very best-regarded information presenters soon after a female author explained that he had sexually assaulted her.
The investigation towards the presenter, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, was confirmed on Friday by the prosecutor’s workplace in the Paris suburb of Nanterre soon after Le Parisien newspaper reported the accusations a day earlier.
Mr. Poivre d’Arvor’s attorney, François Binet, denied the accusations and explained his consumer would file two complaints towards the author, Florence Porcel, for creating false accusations and for defamation.
A series of sexual abuse scandals have rocked France’s political, cultural and media elite more than the previous yr, which include the fall from grace of a pedophile author who for decades was protected by effective pals.
A former deputy mayor of Paris was investigated more than accusations that he had raped a younger guy, although the situation was at some point dropped since the statute of limitations had run out. And a guide published in January that accused a prominent French intellectual of incest set off a reckoning on little one abuse.
In the situation of Mr. Poivre d’Arvor, Le Parisien reported that he assaulted Ms. Porcel, a 37-yr-outdated author and YouTuber, on two events.
In 2004, when she was 21, it explained, Mr. Poivre d’Arvor invited her to come and observe his information demonstrate soon after she wrote to him. Just after the demonstrate, he took her to his workplace and sexually assaulted her, in accordance to the newspaper. The two stored in touch, and he assaulted Ms. Porcel once again in 2009, the paper explained.
A individual with awareness of Ms. Porcel’s accusations, who asked not to be recognized since the investigation is nevertheless in progress, explained that the newspaper accurately stated her account.
The prosecutor’s workplace did not verify any information about the situation. Ms. Porcel’s attorney could not be quickly reached for comment.
Mr. Poivre d’Arvor is a home identify in France. He has presented the prime-time evening information for additional than two decades, acquiring begun his job as a newsreader in the early 1970s and swiftly increasing to prominence. He presented France’s most-watched information demonstrate, on the channel TF1, from 1987 to 2008.
But he also had some notable qualified failures, which include an apparently fabricated interview with the Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro in 1991.
Mr. Poivre d’Arvor filmed himself asking queries and then utilized Mr. Castro’s solutions at a information conference, but offering the impression that it had been an unique interview. He denied that it was fabricated and explained the section was just badly edited: There had been no repercussions for the incident.
In 1996, Mr. Poivre d’Arvor acquired a 15-month suspended jail sentence soon after becoming convicted of accepting bribes from the stepson of a prominent politician.
Because leaving TF1 in 2008, he has hosted different displays, which include a literary plan that ended final month prior to the accusations emerged. He has also written about 60 books.
It was as a result of a guide that Ms. Porcel 1st alluded to her accusations. In January, she published an autobiographical novel, “Pandorini,” in which she tells a story that she says was “inspired by an episode in her existence.”
It recounts how a well known actor assaulted her, an act that she named “the destruction of the innocence of a younger grownup by a effective guy.”
Gaëlle Fournier contributed investigate.