Ménès-Portolano defamation trial, ruling due 4 November | OneFootball

Marie Portolano appeared before a Paris criminal court in the defamation case brought by Pierre Ménès, the hearing going ahead without him after a failed bid to postpone for medical reasons. The court set its ruling for 4 November.

According to L'Équipe, Ménès cited a long scheduled specialist appointment in Rennes and his lawyer was also unavailable. Judges refused the adjournment, the session began at 15:00 without the claimant, and Portolano’s counsel Christophe Bigot condemned the action while asking the court to sanction Ménès for abusing civil party status.

The complaint came three months after the March 2024 release of Portolano’s book Je suis la femme du plateau, published by Stock, whose chief executive Manuel Carcassonne is also on trial. Ménès challenges two passages, including lines about a figure said to impose a droit de cuissage and to touch women as he pleased, and another stating he admitted the act. He is due to be tried on 16 November in Nanterre over the alleged assault.

Portolano alleges Ménès lifted her skirt and touched her buttocks off air but in front of the Canal Football Club audience on 28 August 2016. She says she slapped him, left the set angry, later returned for a planned group photo, and raised the matter at the next day’s debrief.

She linked the case to her 2021 Canal+ documentary Je ne suis pas une salope, je suis une journaliste, saying a sequence was cut to protect Ménès. The cut was revealed by Les Jours, aired on Touche pas à mon poste, and replayed in court.

In that footage, Ménès said he did not remember the incident, indicated he would lift her skirt again, and complained about limits on what could be said to women. Portolano told the court her film aimed to show the difficulties women face in sports newsrooms, described a pattern of avoiding her colleague, recalled pregnancy comments about her body, and argued that while he bears responsibility, those who enabled it are most to blame.

Source: L'Équipe

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