Florence Porcel is still grappling with the PPDA case and signs an essay on shame

Florence Porcel is the first to file a rape complaint against Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, in February 2021, launching what is now known as “the PPDA deal”. He accuses him of two rapes, allegedly taking place in 2004 and 2009. After filing a complaint again in the fall of 2021, and while a trial could open, he is preparing to publish Shame (edited by JC Lattès, La Grenade label), 11 January. A sentiment that she examines especially through her personal story and the prism of rape.

A feeling that joins the feminine

“We understand from school that being a girl can become a defamatory insult. We hear “Run like a girl”, “Fight like a girl”. We hear of the “weaker sex”. explains Florence Porcel to the magazine SHE, in an interview published on Thursday 5 January. He also evokes the shame of menstruation and the female body, especially the “non-maternal female womb ». “It has a vital function, but it should disappear. It’s delusional”protest.

“The shame of being attacked”

But if Florence Porcel has chosen to write a book about shame, it is above all “because nineteen years after the first rape I suffered, I’m still ashamed of it. It’s a feeling I struggle withhe explains to ELLE magazine. There is the shame you feel within yourself, and then the shame society constantly returns to you when you file a rape complaint.. In his case, like so many others, “to the shame of being attacked was added the humiliation of not being believed”says the author. “Of all the crimes, rape is the only one for which the victim feels guilty”observe.

“The humiliation of not being believed”

Florence Porcel is currently awaiting to know if a trial against PPDA will open, “what I want”, she says. An immense hope when after her first complaint, followed by 22 other women, the investigation was closed due to the prescription of all the facts, except her second alleged rape. But not only : “After two hours of interrogation, she (the psychologist appointed by the investigators, ed.) disqualified my speech and made me pass for a liar and manipulator, on the pretext that my words seemed “cold and distant”says the author. My tears, too sober for his taste, seemed to him “playful”, “like in the theatre” ». But the author does not budge and wants compared to PPDA answer for his actions in court. Let me take them. That’s all. »