She would do it again “without hesitation”. Five years after the #BalanceTonPorc movement, Sandra Muller, its initiator, says that, despite the lawsuits and the heavy psychological price she says she has paid, things are “progressing” and that it was worth it.
“It completely ruined five years of my life,” she said in an interview with AFP. But “when you have the means to change a society to install better rules, better laws”, “without calculating it, without anticipating it”, “yes, it is a satisfaction”, she adds.
” Responsibility “
In October 2017, Sandra Muller is already living in New York. On the 5th, takes out the article from New York Times on sexual harassment charges against powerful movie producer Harvey Weinstein. “I began to read with frenzy everything there was on the subject, not being able to prevent myself from drawing parallels with our environment”, journalism, says Sandra Muller, 51 years old.
By dint of “swallowing all the testimonies for almost a week”, the feeling that she has a responsibility grows: “We are journalists, we must designate”, she says she thought at the time.
Two tweets published on October 13, 2017
So on October 13, 2017, two days before actress Alyssa Milano’s famous tweet that will explode the #MeToo around the world, she writes a few words, presses “tweet”. “#BalanceYourPorc!! you also tell by giving the name and the details of a sexual harasser (sic) that you have known in your job. I’m waiting for you “.
Then a few hours later, she published another tweet, in which she quoted comments made by the former boss of a television channel, Eric Brion, in a “totally professional setting”: “You have big breasts. You are my type of woman. I will make you cum all night long”. The #BalanceTonPorc movement is launched. Following him, an avalanche of testimonies, controversies, questionings and trials.
A victory for Sandra Muller in cassation
Eric Brion acknowledged “inappropriate comments” and apologized; but claiming to be the subject of an “amalgam between heavy flirting and sexual harassment”, and deploring the consequences for his own personal and professional life, he attacks it and wins the case at first instance: Sandra Muller is sentenced for defamation .
On appeal, however, justice recognizes the journalist “the benefit of good faith”, and the Court of Cassation confirms it.
“The ugly witch who dared to speak”
During these almost five years, it was often “violent”, says Sandra Muller. Accused of having thrown a man’s name into the woods, she defends her word. “I never said Eric Brion was a rapist,” she said. But it is necessary to “knock out” what is considered to be “the lowest level” of aggression, namely verbal aggression, to hope to fight against physical violence, she argues.
Not everyone is of this opinion. “I suffered both virtual and real attacks. I was the awful witch who had dared to speak”, says the journalist of the Audiovisual letterevoking the trolls on social networks, the backlash on his private life – “reactions of rejection”, a worried family – as professional.
A balance sheet that, according to her, is worth it
“It’s difficult to find the life before, I’m just starting,” she adds. “I lost work (…). One day I asked a major radio station (…) if I could do freelance work, and I was told “we can’t make Mrs. #BalanceTonPorc work”. Lately, freelancers are coming back, slowly, she explains.
And despite the difficulties, she considers that the results, five years later, are worth it. #BalanceTonPorc, #MeToo, “it still made society progress”, she says, citing the freedom of speech, the measures taken in companies.
There remains the question of the prescription
Before, many people who harassed or worse “could go ahead with impunity, do what they wanted with an organized general silence, considerable support”. Today, “these people will think twice before coming to attack”, she wants to believe.
Admittedly, the question of the prescription of the facts in France remains “central” and “there will always be more laws to be made, more mobilization, education” in particular of boys. “But I still think that in five years we have evolved a lot compared to the last 40, right? “, she says.