JEAN-JACQUES BOURDIN. The journalist at RMC-BFM TV is the subject of a complaint for attempted sexual assault: he is accused of having tried to forcibly kiss a former colleague. Jean-Jacques Bourdin denies the facts.
[Mis à jour le 17 janvier 2022 à 12h57] Jean-Jacques Bourdin is the subject of a complaint for attempted sexual assault, filed this Tuesday, January 11, 2022. The 72-year-old RMC journalist is accused by a former journalist from BFM-TV and RMC with whom she would have worked for several years. In his statements to investigators reported in The Parisian, the complainant accuses the host of having “grabbed her by the neck and tried to kiss her several times” while she was in a swimming pool, during a trip to Corsica in 2013, when she was 25 years old. Subsequently, the journalist allegedly sent him insistent emails and text messages for several months. Le Parisien claims that two other women could testify against the journalist in the coming days.
Jean-Jacques Bourdin has firmly denied the accusations made against him. The Altice Media group, which owns RMC and BFM TV, announced on January 16, 2022 that it had opened an internal investigation “to ensure that no facts of this type have been brought to the attention of the managers or colleagues of the interested parties. .” Marc-Olivier Fogiel, general manager of BFM TV, for his part affirmed that “at this stage, nothing leads us to change things on the air. We must not give in to any pressure. There is nothing that prevents him from doing his job.”
Born in 1949 in Colombes, near Paris, Jean-Jacques Bourdin is a TV presenter and a radio presenter. He made a habit of heckling his political guests somewhat in his morning broadcast on RMC and BFM TV. From the heart of the Cévennes, Jean-Jacques Bourdin had a happy encounter in 1976: that of Raymond Castans, then Secretary General of RTL programs. Aware of the talents of the young Jean-Jacques Bourdin in sports, he brought him into the radio station as a trainee. From a sports journalist, Jean-Jacques Bourdin became a reporter then a newspaper presenter. He thus climbed the ladder until obtaining the post of editor-in-chief in 1991. From 1996 to 2000, he hosted a program of a new kind, “Les auditioneurs ont la parole”.
Called in 2001 by Alain Weill, new president of RMC radio, Jean-Jacques Bourdin took over the morning show “Bourdin & Co” in 2004. Monday to Friday, from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., the host comments on political news and economical. He makes it a point of honor to engage listeners and titillate his guests with trick questions. This will be his trademark. From 2007 to 2020, his “Bourdin Direct” interview was broadcast simultaneously on BFM TV. In 2010, he tried his hand at a new program on scammers, “Abuse of trust” (TF1), but the success was not there. The same year, he received the Philippe Caloni prize for the best interviewer. Since the start of the 2020 school year, he has only presented the political interview at 8:35 a.m., on RMC and BFM TV.
It was during the Bourdin Direct program that Jean-Jacques Bourdin met his future partner, Anne Nivat, a great written press reporter, with whom he had a son in 2006. Previously, Jean-Jacques Bourdin was married to Marie -Laure Bourdin, with whom he had two daughters.
Jean-Jacques Bourdin is controversial after being arrested for speeding
In its issue dated May 27, 2020, the daily La Montagne reports that Jean-Jacques Bourdin was arrested on Sunday May 24 by gendarmes from the Motorized Peloton of Saint-Flour after being flashed on the A75 motorway at a speed of 186 kph. The newspaper explains that “a speed of 176 km / h was finally retained. His vehicle was immobilized and he was sanctioned with an administrative retention of the driving license”. Still according to La Montagne, Jean-Jacques Bourdin would also have been fined €135 for not respecting the travel limit of 100 km around his home, a measure taken for deconfinement until June 2, 2020.
On the air of BFM TV and RMC in his program Bourdin Direct on May 28, 2020, the journalist wanted to explain himself on this subject. “Speeding yes, but travel ban no. I had two permits: one personal and one professional.” He did not wish to detail these authorizations: “my private life does not interest and should not interest absolutely anyone”. Jean-Jacques Bourdin also described the conditions in which he drove at this speed: “I was driving too fast and I am perfectly aware of it. I would still like to clarify, because everything and anything has been said about the social media as usual, that the highway was empty and there wasn’t a car. I was in a straight line and the weather was beautiful, I would like to clarify. So I was just risking for me, I was alone in the car.”