Sexual assault: Pierre Ménès definitively convicted

Pierre Ménès' two-month suspended prison sentence for sexual assault, handed down by the Paris Criminal Court in April 2023, became final after his appeal was deemed inadmissible, a judicial source said on Tuesday.

The Paris Court of Appeal issued a ruling on August 19th finding the journalist's appeal to be untimely and therefore inadmissible. Since Pierre Ménès did not file an appeal to the Court of Cassation, his conviction has been considered final since September 1st, his right of appeal having been definitively extinguished, the same source clarified.

On April 19, 2023, the criminal court declared the former Canal+ commentator, now 63 years old, guilty of "part of the alleged acts" against a saleswoman in a shop on the Champs-Elysées in Paris five years earlier.

The complainant alleged that Pierre Ménès had "taken her hands" while "interlacing his fingers," that he had "pressed his chest against hers," and then pointed to her breasts, saying, "they're enormous." She further stated that he had walked behind her, "rubbing himself," with his "genitals against her buttocks."

During the trial, the former columnist denied any assault, denouncing an "empty case" and suggesting a "set-up".

The judges had considered that "the initial contact" described by one of the two shop assistants was "corroborated by the videos" but, "for the rest, the court considered that there was a substantial doubt and that he could not enter into a guilty verdict," the president said when reading his judgment.

The latter had also "pointed out" that he had "gone to the minimum sentence", without registering the journalist in the automated judicial file of perpetrators of sexual offences.

Pierre Ménès had been sentenced to a mandatory additional penalty of ineligibility for one year.

AFP