2023-08-29 14:40:47
Thirty-five years after the events, Selima Sfar speaks. In a long and overwhelming interview with L’Equipe, the former member of the world’s top 100 recounts the trauma she suffered between the ages of 12 and 17. She says she was touched and raped by Régis de Camaret, who was then her trainer in Biarritz. It all started as soon as she arrived in France, coming from Tunisia to realize her dream.
One day, her new coach travels with her between Bordeaux airport and Biarritz. “In the middle of the journey, it was one o’clock in the morning, he stopped on the side of the road and he started touching me, doing things. At that moment, I didn’t even know what was happening, I didn’t understand at all. Thirty-five years ago, 12 years is not 12 years now. I came from an Arab country. All I knew was that he was one of the best coaches in the world, a little “God” in tennis in France and, if I really wanted to become a champion, I needed him. »
“We continued on the road and we arrived at his house, late. Upstairs was her daughter and her bedroom, I slept on the sofa bed downstairs. I went to bed and an hour or two later I woke up to him touching me. Then it went from touching to rape, very quickly. Each time, it was the same thing, I was paralyzed. It lasted almost three years,” she says.
Régis de Camaret, sentenced in 2014, was released in 2019
The Tunisian, now 46, then made the radical decision to train alone, between the ages of 16 and 17. “I couldn’t bear it anymore,” she explains. I trained six hours a day alone, in the evening I debriefed the day alone and prepared for the next day. I was disciplined and got into the top 100.”
Another tennis player, Isabelle Demongeot, had denounced Régis de Camaret for rape, in 2005, in her book Service stolen. She had collected the testimonies of 25 other victims, which led to the sentencing of her attacker to ten years in prison in 2014. At the time, Selima Sfar had not spoken. It was thanks to the precious help of her therapist that she “opened the door to this trauma”, going so far as to publicly denounce Régis de Camaret, without however filing a complaint since the facts are prescribed. “He was in prison, he was sentenced. Guilty, he is and always will be, she explains. He committed a crime, it is a certainty but the purpose of this interview is not to blame him. He did his job. He was released on August 1, 2019.
She hopes her message will reach other victims: “I am talking about it because there is still a lot of abuse, for all those who are victims. Tell them that if they didn’t say no, it’s because it’s humanly impossible if you don’t have the tools to defend yourself. »
#Sexual #violence #extennis #player #Selima #Sfar #accuses #coach #Régis #Camaret