Paris (AFP) – French prosecutors have detained for questioning one of France’s most prominent football pundits in a sexual assault probe, prosecutors and sources close to the case said on Thursday.
Pierre Menes, 58, lost his job earlier this year for the Canal Plus channel over a number of complaints made against him by women.
A woman then accused Menes of sexual assault after a match on November 20 between Paris Saint-Germain and Nantes and prosecutors opened a probe.
His lawyer Arash Derambarsh confirmed Menes was being held for questioning, which a source close to the case said was being carried out at the request of prosecutors. Derambarsh said Menes would himself file a complaint against the “slanderous denunciation” against him.
Menes was the star pundit on the channel’s “Canal Football Club” show but he stepped down in July as concern grew over his behaviour.
He was accused this year of in August 2016, at the end of a programme, lifting a female colleague’s skirt before grabbing her buttocks, off air but in front of the studio audience.
In another scene that was recorded and has been reposted on social media, he forcibly kissed his colleague Isabelle Moreau on the mouth while broadcasting from the studio. He has insisted that health problems mean this his memory of such events is impaired.
Many commentators have cast France as being slow to break longstanding taboos over sexual abuse and harassment as the #MeToo movement gathered steam.
But over the last months, a slew of accusations and legal cases have engulfed prominent figures such as the writer Gabriel Matzneff and the political commentator Olivier Duhamel.
