“We obviously missed something,” admits a former TF1 manager

The management of TF1 has “obviously missed something” on the subject of its former star presenter Patrick Poivre d'Arvor, indicted for rape, admitted, Thursday, November 7, Robert Namias, the former director of information between 1996 and 2008.

“The context was not the same”, more “despite everything, we missed something”said the former manager before the commission of inquiry into sexual violence in cinema and audiovisual. “We did not imagine for a moment that there could be such crimes committed at TF1”he developed under oath. “It’s a huge wound that opened in November 2021” during the revelations on this file, he underlined, while certain victims believe that the management of TF1 protected its former star.

MP Estelle Youssouffa (Liot group), herself a former journalist at LCI, a channel of the same group, thus affirmed that “harassment [de PPDA] was perfectly known”. In total, more than 40 women testified in court against the former news presenter of Antenne 2 then TF1, now aged 77, who contests the accusations of rape and sexual assault.

“I was never informed of anything”

A first judicial investigation was opened in 2021 in Nanterre after a complaint with the creation of a civil party from the author Florence Porcel, who accuses PPDA of having raped her twice. He was indicted in December 2023 for one of these rapes.

“Poivre presented the newspaper for twenty years” et “we are talking about 70 to 80” women publicly accusing him, including few of the channel's collaborators and not always for attacks in his office but outside, noted Robert Namias. “I was never informed of anything” et “if we had the slightest conviction, he should have left the company immediately”insisted the former manager.

Asked about a visit to the presenter's office in the TF1 tower by police officers after a rape complaint filed in June 2005 and closed shortly after, Robert Namias denied having any knowledge of it. “There is no trace of this visit”. Revealed in October by The World, This complaint was subsequently filed by Caroline Merlet, 29 years old at the time, who had attended the television news. The host was then interviewed by the Hauts-de-Seine judicial police.

Mr. Namias also assured that he would not « souvenir » of reports of harassment from ” Pepper “. However, he recognized that “in the 80s and 90s or even 2000s, we did not have at all the same approach to these questions of sexual harassment”.