Defamation: Marie Portolano tried in Paris over book targeting Pierre Ménès
Sports journalist Marie Portolano appears before court on Monday in Paris for defamation against Pierre Ménès, whom she accuses of sexual assault in her book published in 2024.
Marie Portolano before court for defamation against Pierre Ménès
Sports journalist Marie Portolano is being tried on Monday in Paris for defamation against Pierre Ménès, the former star commentator at Canal+, reports 20minutes.fr. It is not the documentary "I am not a slut, I am a journalist", co-directed by Portolano in 2021, that led to this legal proceeding, but rather her book "I am the woman on the set", published in March 2024 by Stock editions.
In this work, the journalist recounted a sexual assault that she says she suffered on the Canal+ set in 2016. Two passages prompted Pierre Ménès's complaint. In the first, without naming him directly, she writes: "he allowed himself to do as he pleased with the women around him. To touch whoever he wanted, wherever he wanted, without the consent of the people concerned obviously, but with the consent of those who could have quite easily stopped him". In the second passage in question, she states: "He admits that he did it".
The matter dates back to 2016, when Marie Portolano, now 40 years old, was allegedly subjected to an assault by the consultant on the set of "Canal Football Club". Images of the scene, edited out by Canal+ in 2021, had been unearthed by the media outlet Les Jours. They showed Portolano reproaching Ménès for lifting her skirt in front of the audience. The latter claimed not to remember, while stating that he could do it again. The controversy hastened the end of nearly twelve years of collaboration between Ménès and the pay-TV channel. The Nanterre public prosecutor's office opened an investigation into these events in 2022.
The journalist, who now presents "La Maison des Maternelles" on France 2, did not file a complaint against the consultant. She had even deplored the "witch hunt" of which he had been the subject, arguing that he is not "responsible" for "all the sexism in France".
Furthermore, Pierre Ménès, 63 years old, was sentenced in 2023 to two months in prison, suspended, for a sexual assault committed in 2018 in a Nike store. He had been acquitted of two other accusations at the same hearing.
In this defamation proceeding, Manuel Carcassonne, chief executive of Stock editions, is also being prosecuted alongside the journalist. After the announcement that Portolano had been placed under formal investigation, a collective of journalists had denounced "an inversion of victim-blame: instead of hearing the testimony of a woman who denounces patriarchal violence, it is she who finds herself in a position to be attacked in court".
The trial could nevertheless be adjourned to a later date. Pierre Ménès's legal team had requested this adjournment, citing a medical appointment. Christophe Bigot, lawyer for Marie Portolano and Stock editions, interprets this request differently: "He does not want this matter to be tried, because he sees that it is not necessarily going very well". A further hearing is scheduled for 16 November.
Source: Google News LU FR