Patrick Poivre d'Arvor
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Patrick Poivre d'Arvor (born Patrick Poivre, September 20, 1947) is a French TV journalist and writer. He is a household name in France, and is familiarily nicknamed PPDA. With over 30 years and in excess of 4,500 editions of Television news to his credit, he is the longest serving amongst current newsreaders in the world.
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[edit] Biography
Patrick Poivre was born in Reims, France.
He obtained his Baccalaureat at the age of 15, at the same time as becoming father. Patrick Poivre attended the Institut d'études politiques de Paris, where he studied Law and Oriental Languages at the Institut national des langues et civilisations orientales.
[edit] Journalistic career
PPDA started training as a journialist at the Centre de formation des journalistes (CFJ) at 22, he obtained his first job in 1971 on France Inter, as the morning news-reader.
In 1974, coinciding with the Valéry Giscard d'Estaing's accession to the French Presidency, PPDA joined Antenne 2, and made his first TV appearance there in 1975, then made anchorman for news bulletins from February 16, 1976 to July 28, 1983. After a brief stint with Canal+, PPDA joined TF1 in 1986 for the Sunday program A la folie pas du tout.
On August 31 1987, he was made TV anchorman for the weekday evening news at 8pm from Monday to Thursday, which he still presents to this day (2006), and as such is probably the journalist whose face is the most familiar to the French. He is satirised in the French puppet show Les Guignols de l'info shown on Canal+, where his alter ego is the puppet PPD, the news anchor.
After 30 years as news anchor, it is believed Patrick Poivre d'Arvor holds the record for longest-serving unretired presenter of a television news programme anywhere in the world.
[edit] Professional controversies
No stranger to scandal and questionable journalist ethics, undoubtedly his greatest controversy is the faked interview[1] he purported to have made with Cuban President Fidel Castro, broadcast on December 16, 1991. Télérama journalist Pierre Carles exposed this fraud, upon which PPDA blamed his colleague and co-interviewer Régis Faucon, after the latter had departed TF1[2].
On January 10, 1996, the Court of Appeal sentenced Poivre to 15 months in prison (suspended) and fined 200,000 French Francs for his part in the misappropriation of public funds in the case involving Pierre Botton and his father-in-law and then Deputy Mayor of Lyon Michel Noir)[3].
[edit] Personal life
He is married to Véronique, with whom he has had four daughters.
One of them, Solenn, committed suicide at a Paris metro station in 1995, aged 19, having been a long-term anorexic. Since then, her plight has become the symbol in France of the problems of anorexia and bulimia, with Patrick himself becoming a noted campaigner and writer on the issue. In December 2004, Bernadette Chirac, wife of the French President Jacques Chirac, whose daughter has also suffered from the disorder, opened a new treatment centre in Paris for adolescents with the condition and named it “Maison de Solenn” in memory of Poivre d'Arvor's late daughter.
Nonetheless, Poivre d'Arvor caused controversy by presenting his regular news bulletin the very next evening after Solenn's death.
[edit] Controversies in his private life
For several years in the 1990s, rumours abounded that Poivre d'Arvor had had an affair with Claire Chazal, his weekend counterpart as TF1 8pm news anchor. The pair always steadfastly refused to confirm the story until August 2005, when Poivre d'Arvor acknowledged that he was the father of Chazal's 10-year-old son, François, in "Confessions", a book of interviews which PPDA gave to French journalist Serge Raffy. "We had set at ten (i.e. the child's age) the time that this story would be revealed", Poivre d'Arvor said.
[edit] Published works
Prolific author, he has published many books, two of which dedicated to his daughter Solenn, who committed suicide at the age of 19. He has also written prefaces to books by other authors, and these are not listed here.
- L'enfant de l'aube, 1982 J.-C. Lattès, ISBN 2709601486
- Les Femmes de ma vie, 1988 France Loisirs
- L'homme d'image, 1992 Flammarion, ISBN 2080668021
- Lettres à l'absente 1993 Albin Michel
- Les loups et la bergerie, 1994 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226069879
- Elle n'était pas d'ici, 1995 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226078460
- Un Héros de passage, 1996 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226085637
- Une trahison amoureuse, 1997 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226093567
- Lettre ouverte aux violeurs de vie privee, 1997 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226092048
- La Fin du monde 1998 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226100091
- Petit Homme, 1999 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226106588
- L'Irrésolu, 2000 Albin Michel ISBN 2226116702, - Interallié Prize winner in 2001
- Les rats de garde (co-author Eric Zemmour) 2000 Stock, ISBN 2234052173
- Le Roman de Virginie, 2001 J'ai lu, ISBN 2277220809
- Un enfant, 2001 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226126082
- La Traversée du miroir, 2002 Balland, ISBN 271581416X
- J'ai aimé une reine, 2003 Editions Fayard, ISBN 2213615624
- Courriers de nuit : La Légende de Mermoz et de Saint-Exupéry, (co-author Olivier Poivre d'Arvor), 2003 Place des Victoires, ISBN 2844590454
- La mort de Don Juan, 2004 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226154000
- Frères et soeur, 2004 Balland, ISBN 2715814828
- Les plus beaux poemes d'amour anthologie, 2004 Albin Michel, ISBN 2226079963
- Chasseurs de trésors et autres flibustiers (co-author Olivier Poivre d'Arvor), 2005 Place Des Victoires Eds, ISBN 2844591108
- Pirates et corsaires (co-author Olivier Poivre d'Arvor), 2005 Place Des Victoires Eds, ISBN 2844590756
- Coureurs des mers, (co-author Olivier Poivre d'Arvor), 2005 Place Des Victoires Eds, ISBN 2844590586
- Disparaître (co-author Olivier Poivre d'Arvor), 2006 Gallimard, ISBN 2070779661
[edit] Trivia
- In 2004, Poivre d'Arvor was cast in a minor voice-only role as a newscaster in the French version of the Pixar animated film The Incredibles (Les Indestructibles).
- Poivre d'Arvor claims to be descended directly from Jacques Poivre, brother of Pierre Poivre (French article) who was 18th century nobleman by Louis XV. "D'Arvor" being Jacques Poivre's pseudonym. Patrick Poivre and his three children legally changed their surname to "Poivre d'Arvor" in 1994.
[edit] References
- ^ * Olivier Cyran, Mehdi Ba (et al), Almanach critique des médias (2005) - éditions Les Arènes. « PPDA/Castro - Fausse interview, vraie mensonge ». ISBN 2-912485-83-5
- ^ Les fabuleuses histoires de Poivre d’Arvor on Acrimed
- ^ Noir-Botton-Mouillot-PPDA : à Lyon plus dure est la cour d’appel on L'Humamité
