2023-10-11 09:32:00
Television host Stéphane Plaza is the subject of an investigation for domestic violence, a few weeks after being accused of physical and psychological violence by former partners in the columns of Médiapart.
Stéphane Plaza is the target of an investigation for domestic violence, the Paris prosecutor’s office announced this Tuesday, October 10, 2023. This follows accusations from two women, who each sent a letter to the Paris prosecutor’s office, “reproaching violence committed during their relationship” with the M6 host.
This announcement echoes the testimony of three women, claiming to be former companions of the real estate agent, who accused two of them of verbal, psychological and physical violence in the columns of Médiapart. Stéphane Plaza’s lawyers denounced “defamatory and insulting accusations” before indicating that the accusers “are the subject of a criminal complaint for harassment and cyberharassment”.
For its part, the M6 group announced the opening of an internal investigation on September 21, following the publication of the article. However, the programs presented by Stéphane Plaza, such as Search for apartment or house, remain in the broadcast schedule of the sixth channel. M6 did not react to the announcement of the opening of the investigation, while a demonstration bringing together around thirty people took place Tuesday evening in front of the Six premises.
Around thirty people demonstrate this evening in front of M6 following the call for@alicecoffin to denounce the fact that Stéphane Plaza remains on the air despite the judicial opening of a criminal investigation for domestic violence pic.twitter.com/AUdHVduWGK
— Benoît Daragon (@bendarag) October 10, 2023
The testimony of the three ex-partners published by Mediapart
Stéphane Plaza is accused by three former partners of acts of violence in an article in Mediapart published Thursday September 21. They say they suffered “verbal and psychological violence (humiliation, denigration, threats)” from the real estate agent and two of them describe “physical attacks”. They further claimed to the investigative newspaper that they had maintained a relationship with the host without knowing that he was seeing other people, accusing him of “exerting manipulation, pressure and mistreatment” to “make several relationships coexist serious at the same time.
Stéphane Plaza would have refused to respond to requests from Mediapart on these various matters. The host’s lawyer, Me Hélène Plumet, denounced “totally extrapolated, even false allegations” and “fanciful accusations”. She also announced that Stéphane Plaza had filed a complaint against them last June for harassment and cyberharassment.
Among the testimonies revealed by Mediapart against the fifty-year-old host and real estate agent, one of his ex-partners, who allegedly provided written testimony to a bailiff in May 2022, accuses him of having “violently returned” several fingers during a fit of fury. “Three of my fingers were hanging off, they quickly turned purple and swollen,” she assures. She also claims to have been “punched in the shoulder”. Another of his former partners, who would have filed a handrail in September 2022, claims that he would have inflicted “bites” on her. Threats are also mentioned in this Mediapart article.
Stéphane Plaza “fears for his life”
Stéphane Plaza’s lawyer assures Mediapart that these testimonies come from “three women he dated and who, ultimately rejected, banded together against him to harm him by all means”. His lawyer also tells Mediapart that a complaint for harassment and cyberstalking was filed against one of the accusers in June 2023: “The facts are sufficiently serious for Mr. Plaza to fear for his life, as he indicated to the district Attorney”. A prosecution was also reportedly filed against one of the accusers in October 2021.
In a press release, Stéphane Plaza’s counsel denounced “defamatory and insulting accusations”. “Mediapart acted as relay for three women who undermine the dignity” of Stéphane Plaza, “thus making themselves complicit in the public denigration against the latter, while they are the subject of a criminal complaint that he filed [contre elles] for harassment and cyberharassment”, we can still read.
The M6 group, for its part, reacted to the information late in the evening, Thursday September 21. On X (formerly Twitter), he indicated that he had an interview with Stéphane Plaza after the information appeared in the press. Saying that it was “particularly attached to the values of respect for people and guarantor of its code of ethics and professional conduct”, the M6 group announced that it was taking “note of Stéphane Plaza’s formal challenge to the facts with which he is accused and of the legal challenges that ‘he committed’.
#accusations