It was by leaning painfully on crutches and visibly diminished that Pierre Ménès entered, Wednesday, March 8, the 24e Chamber of the Paris Criminal Court. Former star of Canal + (2009-2021) and its flagship program, the “Canal Football club”, the former sports columnist, 59, appeared for more than five hours for several alleged acts of “sexual abuse on two sales assistants from the Nike store on the Champs-Elysées, June 18, 2018, and on a hostess at the Parc des Princes, during a match between Paris-Saint-Germain and Nantes, November 21, 2021.
The representative of the public prosecutor requested against the former journalist eight months in prison “combined with the simple reprieve” and a fine of 10,000 euros, denouncing a “abuse of notoriety and power” and pointing “tangible and proven facts”. Initially, the alleged facts of 2018 had been the subject of a reminder to the law, transformed into prosecutions after the “Parc des princes affair” of 2021. Unrelenting in his chair, Pierre Ménès reacted strongly to the accusations of touching of SG and A. T., two Nike saleswomen.
The ex-columnist, who left Canal+ in July 2021 after sealing a transactional agreement with the channel, denied being ” tactile » in daily life and affirms that ” In [s]n gesture of 2018, there is only conviviality and humour”. He only remembered, on June 18, 2018, having done “a check like basketball players do, torso against torso” with AT And to have tried to “clearing a path to the checkout and rubbing shoulders with the saleswoman because there was no room to pass” because of his build.
“Perfectly characterized gestures”
“Today any gesture towards a woman is inappropriate. This has changed, allow me to regret it. You can’t even pat a woman on the shoulder anymore. Over the past two years, my relationship with women has completely changed.deplored Pierre Ménès, targeted since January 2022 by a preliminary investigation by the Nanterre prosecutor’s office for alleged acts of sexual harassment and sexual assault during his “reign” on the encrypted channel.
While none of the three alleged victims went to the hearing or filed a civil action, the defendant was invited to react to the accusations of a hostess at the Parc des Princes. The latter, S. L., says she identified him on her return to the box after half-time of a match, when she “felt a hand” touching her “top to bottom, from the right chest to the belly”.
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