2023-12-22 15:13:00
Julie Brochu, former host and ex-producer of Sébastien Cauet, tells Libération how her years of work with the NRJ figure harmed her health.
Host Sébastien Cauet, already targeted by four complaints for rape and sexual assault, is once once more in turmoil. While several women accuse the host of having abused them or of having made inappropriate gestures by using his notoriety and his dominant position, new testimonies revealed by an investigation by the newspaper Libération, published this Friday, December 22 , denounce the toxic work environment of its broadcasts.
Julie Brochu, former producer and co-host of Cauet, returned to the columns of Release on his accusations of moral harassment which caused “a deterioration of his working conditions” and “a deterioration of his health”.
Julie Brochu, who worked with Cauet for almost twenty years, denounces more specifically “inappropriate comments and attitudes from her superiors”, “a deterioration of her working conditions” and “an alteration of her health”. Accusations confirmed by his lawyer Isabelle Wekstein, for whom the practices of BeAware, Cauet’s company, are “unacceptable and often contrary to labor law”.
Unrecognized moral harassment
Me Wekstein points out for his part “the pressure exerted on the employee through repeated and unjustified warnings such as during sick leave or following referral to the industrial tribunal” and “a form of endangering employees” with “the obligation to participate in degrading, humiliating and health-threatening challenges on air”.
Julie Brochu also remembers the obligation to participate in these challenges “despite her disagreement and reluctance” and of having received “huge slaps on the back of the head”, of having to “bear the weight of three men on his back during a human pyramid, biting into a dirty, smelly sock or swallowing a dozen laxative tablets.
In November 2017, Julie Brochu finally decided to stop her collaboration with Cauet and took legal action. She then goes on sick leave. “My doctor told me not to set foot on the radio once more, otherwise I risked going into depression,” she tells Libération. At the beginning of 2018, she was fired “due to [son] medically proven incapacity and the impossibility of [la] reclassify”.
At the end of a long procedure, the deterioration of his state of health due to his work with Cauet was certified in 2022 and the company BeAware Radio was condemned for dismissal “without real and serious cause”. Moral harassment, due to lack of evidence, was not recognized during the trial. Contacted on this subject by Libération, Sébastien Cauet’s lawyer replied that “the vast majority of the applicant’s requests were rejected, and all those which might directly or indirectly concern Sébastien Cauet”.
“I was afraid of being fired”
Libération also cites the testimony of several collaborators, current or past, of its show. Among them, the host Enora Malagré. She tells Libération in particular that she agreed “reluctantly” to participate in the segment “Enora tests your boyfriend”, where she had to seduce men in relationships on the phone: “I remember very well telling her that I didn’t want to do it, several times. But he was my boss, I was young, I was afraid of being fired.”
The host Sébastien Cauet, figure of NRJ, was targeted by four complaints for rape and sexual assault. He “contests all the accusations”, his lawyers indicated at the end of November. “I have exemplary behavior with the people I work with,” assured the host on December 10 on BFMTV, before adding that he had never “had a problem in twenty years of business” .
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