On March 20, M6 magazine “Enquête Exclusive” featured an issue titled “Sex and Love in West Africa”. During the program, in a sequence dedicated to homosexuality, Bernard de La Villardière traveled to Dakar (Senegal) to meet young people who agreed to testify about his sexuality, in an undisclosed location.
Six months after the issue was broadcast, one of the announcers, in his sixties, accuses the channel of having attacked his anonymity, according to media part. “Before filming we had agreed to do the entire interview in my apartment. I had to pick up the reporters and the presenter around the corner, but as soon as they got out of the car they started filming without anyone’s permission”, specifies the activist to our colleagues (see the sequence in question above).
And to add: “I did not know that they were going to box what I said on the street because I thought that everything had to happen inside. If I had known that, I would never have answered (…) They screwed up my life. If they had respected the commitments and had not publicized my street, I would never have left my country[heaskedtheNeverbeforehadIhadasecurityproblem[lademandélJen’avaisjamaiseudeproblèmedesécuritéauparavant[lepreguntóalNuncaanteshabíatenidounproblemadeseguridad[ilademandélJen’avaisjamaiseudeproblèmedesécuritéauparavant“.
The activist specifies that “the homophobes who lived in my neighborhood, who saw the program, shared it with everyone to say that I was a notorious homosexual who had to be eliminated.” Several people also went to her daughter’s house to harass her.
The intervener’s lawyer asked M6 to obtain compensation, requesting compensation in the amount of 10,000 euros. For its part, the network responded that the producer “was careful not to film her face, to change her name and to modify her voice.”
“Regarding the passage filmed on the street where he lives, the journalist asked his client well in advance if it was possible to film it on the street, which he accepted in response to questions from Bernard de La Villardière. During this interview, he specified that his neighborhood was “totally tolerant” and that his landlady knew of his situation but that he was “gay-friendly.” In addition, we consider that we have not failed in our obligations, “adds the chain, which questions his testimony.