According to information of Parisian, confirmed by AFP, Pierre Ménès was taken into custody on Thursday in a case of sexual assault. This would have taken place on November 20 at the Parc des Princes, after the Ligue 1 match between PSG and Nantes.
The former Canal + columnist (58 years old) is heard in the 1st district of the judicial police (1st DPJ), “at the request of the prosecution,” said a source close to the case. His lawyer, Me Arash Derambarsh, confirmed that Ménès, who had asked in the media to be interviewed, was heard “under the status of police custody”.
“Six testimonies that clear Pierre Ménès”
After the match, a woman reported sexual assault to the police for which the sports journalist was allegedly responsible, without filing a complaint. The same day, the Paris prosecutor’s office opened an investigation.
“To date, we have six testimonies that clear Pierre Ménès and we have lodged a complaint for slanderous denunciation,” his lawyer said Thursday. Ménès produced three certificates from people “unanimously confirming that[il] spent all of his time by their side as soon as he arrived for the cocktail in the lodge, during the match and the post-match cocktail “, according to the complaint consulted by AFP.
Sidelined at the end of March after accusations of sexual assault, the former star columnist of the Football Club Channel left the encrypted channel on July 1, ending nearly 12 years of collaboration. This departure is the consequence of the broadcast on March 21 on Canal + of a documentary on sexism in sports editors and the revelation of incriminating sequences, cut during the editing at the request of the channel, suspected of having protected him.