Florence Porcel “will not let go”. The 39-year-old writer is behind the “PPDA affair”, one of the most emblematic in terms of sexual violence in France. Since his complaint in February 2021, at least 45 women have accused the former star presenter of TF1 in court of having raped, assaulted or sexually harassed them.
In an interview with AFP, the first woman to have filed a complaint for rape against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor said she hoped for a trial, a preliminary investigation has just been relaunched and the investigations concerning her continuing. A first investigation, collecting 23 testimonies including her complaint, was closed in June 2021. But Florence Porcel obtained, in December 2021, the referral of two investigating judges.
At the same time, a second preliminary investigation, which was in the process of being closed, has just been relaunched: three new women have come forward, increasing the number of testimonies to 22. “I unwittingly triggered a case larger than my own file. It’s dizzying and painful, each time, to receive these traumatic stories,” says Florence Porcel.
“Since my complaint, I have been unemployed”
For his part, the journalist and writer denies everything. Guest on the show Daily in March 2021, he accused Florence Porcel of being motivated by “a quest for unseemly notoriety”. “Since my complaint, I have been unemployed. All job offers have stopped, ”replies the one who worked as a popularizer of scientific content. “I won’t give up. I knew the difficulties I was going to face, but I took this risk because I can no longer live with this for almost twenty years, I would like to finally start my life. »
“Parts of myself are dead and I will never recover them, it is the principle of rape, but I would live much better with these absences if there was a trial”, she explains.
“At the time, was there violence, threat, constraint or surprise? »
Florence Porcel accuses Patrick Poivre d’Arvor of having raped her in 2004, when she was 21, in his office at TF1, then in 2009. In the meantime, they had consensual sex in 2008, says- She. This chronology aroused suspicion. Why “go back”? And her old intimate exchanges with a friend, revealed in the press and in which she expresses fantasies for PPDA, do they not prove that she was consenting? “I fully assume these exchanges. It does not matter if a woman has fantasies or feelings, what matters in the criminal definition of rape is the moment T: at the time, was there violence, threat, constraint or surprise? “, answers Florence Porcel.
A pernicious “desire to disappear”
In 2004, the musical theater student “had just survived a brain tumour” when she wrote to PPDA. The latter invites him to attend the television news. Then receives her in his office. There, she denounces non-consensual sexual intercourse. Many women have described this “shot from the set” to justice. “At 21, I didn’t have the tools to understand,” says Florence Porcel. I didn’t know the criminal definition of rape and I had in mind the cinematic one of a stranger jumping on you in a parking lot. “And to add:” We try to make believe that my story is exceptional, but it is statistically banal: in 91% of rapes, the victim knows the aggressor and for half, the aggressor is a spouse or an ex with whom she has already had relations. »
“My brain knows that I am not guilty”, but the media frenzy around the case nourishes in her a feeling of “shame”. A pernicious “desire to disappear”. And afterwards, shame, this “political tool used by the dominant to silence”, does its work and eats away, describes Florence Porcel. “Do we ask a victim of a theft if she resisted her theft? “, she protests. No. But to her, complainant for rape, yes.