Incest allegations against top political scientist rattle Paris establishment

PARIS – Accusations of incest against Olivier Duhamel, one of France’s most prominent political scientists, are causing a growing malaise in the country’s establishment, as suspicions mount around who might have known about the allegations before they were revealed to the public.

In her book released on Thursday, “La Familia Grande”, lawyer Camille Kouchner accuses Duhamel, her stepfather, of sexually abusing her twin brother when they were teenagers. “I am revealing nothing in this book,” she writes, “everyone knows.”

In her book, Kouchner writes that Duhamel started sexually abusing her brother in 1988, when he was 13, telling him that “everyone does this.”

Duhamel, a former Socialist MEP and an expert in constitutional law with multiple media gigs, was until recently the president of National Foundation of Political Science (FNSP), the board that oversees the governance of Sciences Po, a prestigious school attended by much of France’s political class.

Hours before Le Monde published the first extracts from Kouchner’s book, on Monday, Duhamel resigned from his role at the FNSP.

“Being the subject of personal attacks, and eager to protect the institutions I work for, I resign from [all of my positions]” Duhamel said on Twitter, before deleting his account. Duhamel declined to comment on the allegations themselves in Le Monde.

In the 80s and 90s, Duhamel formed a worldly, well-connected couple with Kouchner’s mother Évelyne Pisier, a writer and political scientist herself, who died in 2017. She was the sister of star actress Marie-France Pisier. Their friends included former Prime Minister Michel Rocard, former Culture and Education minister Jack Lang and the philosopher Luc Ferry, who also served as education minister.

Kouchner herself is the daughter of Pisier’s previous husband Bernard Kouchner, the co-founder of Doctors Without Borders who served as minister under François Mitterrand and Nicolas Sarkozy.  

The Paris prosecutor office on Tuesday opened an investigation for rape and sexual allegations over the case.

Frédéric Mion, the director of Sciences Po, was among those who knew about the allegations before Kouchner made them public, it emerged this week.

Mion initially wrote to students on Tuesday to express his “shock” at the accusations against Duhamel, who delivered the 2020 inaugural lecture at the school.

But on Wednesday evening, Le Monde revealed that he had been alerted of the allegations in 2019 by former Socialist minister Aurélie Filippetti. Mion confirmed this in another email to students on Thursday. “With neither tangible evidence nor any further or precise knowledge of the situation, I had difficulty believing that the rumors could be founded,” he wrote.

Mion said he attempted to verify the “rumor”, but that “a person close to Olivier Duhamel” firmly denied any truth to it. Mion concludes: “Should I, or could I, have acted differently in light of the accusations against Olivier Duhamel contained within the book? The question can rightly be asked, and I am ready to have that discussion.”

Student protest

A small group of students organized to protest on Thursday morning – before Mion’s email went out – in front of Sciences Po, asking for Mion’s resignation.

“Frederic Mion was a very consensual figure, but now there is a defiance immediately installed,” said Geoffroy Brocart, a first-year undergrad, “We wonder how we can continue to grant him our confidence.”

“There is still a culture of impunity, at Sciences Po like in other parts of society,” said Lucas Rochette-Berlon, a student in Public Affairs and a student union member, “Now the objective is to use this affair to try to change the system.”

Among politicians who have been called on to comment on the case and a former friend of the couple is Élisabeth Guigou, a former Justice minister recently named to lead a government-mandated committee on sexual violence against children. “We all frequent victims and aggressors without knowing it,” Guigou told L’Obs.

“I hope she will read the book,” Kouchner told L’Obs. “I wish for her to be efficient, because there’s a lot of work to do.”

According to an IPSOS poll done for an NGO group, 10 percent of French people say they have been a victim of incest.