Pierre Ménès accuses Marie Portolano of 'making a buzz' at his expense ahead of two trials

Pierre Ménès is facing two separate legal proceedings this autumn while continuing to publicly attack his former colleague Marie Portolano. The judgment in the defamation case he filed against her is expected on November 4, and he will appear on November 16 before the Nanterre court for sexual assault, for acts dating back to 2016.

On September 7, Marie Portolano appeared before the Paris court following a complaint filed by the former Canal Football Club commentator. Ménès, absent from the hearing and represented only by his lawyer, takes issue with two passages from her book Je suis la femme du plateau, published in March 2024. The work notably mentions the skirt-lifting incident, accusations that gradually removed Ménès from television.

In an interview with magazine Public, the 63-year-old man, who now comments on football news on YouTube, questioned the veracity of the facts he is accused of. “Where is the evidence? Now, ten years later, I say: ‘But where is the evidence?’. There isn’t a shred of it, ten years later. So I have doubts,” he declared.

Pierre Ménès went further by directly attacking his former colleague’s professional trajectory. He accuses her of having “made a buzz with that” and claims this matter constitutes “the crowning achievement of her career.” Comments that come as the courts have not yet rendered their verdict in the defamation trial.