“I was 14 and I let it go (…). I was 14, I knew and said nothing.”
‘My stepfather would come into my brother’s room. I could hear his footsteps in the hallway and knew he was joining him. In this silence I imagined my things. That he asks my brother to maybe stroke him, to suck him.
“I was waiting. I was waiting for him to come out of the room, full of unknown and immediately despised odors,” wrote the book’s author, 45-year-old lawyer Camille Kouchner. “By not giving a name to what was happening, I participated in the incest.”
More than a month after its publication, Kouchner’s book, “La familia grande”, is still at war with France.
In it, Kouchner accuses her stepfather, the leading French intellectual Olivier Duhamel, of abusing her twin brother when he was 14 years old.
The twins are the children of former French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Their stepfather, Duhamel, is a former member of the European Parliament and a well-known political expert who also headed the scientific science of Sciences Po, one of the leading universities in France.
“Because I have been subjected to personal attacks, and in an attempt to preserve the institutions in which I work, I am terminating my functions,” Duhamel wrote on Twitter on January 4, shortly after the accusations surfaced. The tweet coincided with the fact that he stepped down from the board of directors of Sciences Po, as well as left roles in an intellectual club and a political science publication.
Duhamel, meanwhile, deleted the tweet and his Twitter account.
The Paris prosecutor’s office announced on January 5 that it would launch an investigation into Duhamel for “rape and sexual assault by a person who has authority over a 15-year-old minor”, despite the statute of limitations.
CNN asked Duhamel’s lawyer for comment, but received no response. The political scientist has not spoken publicly since the resignation.
Duhamel’s stepson – the twin brother of Camille’s Kouchner – also filed a complaint against Duhamel last month, according to a statement by his lawyer Jacqueline Laffont that CNN received and was initially sent to the AFP news agency.
“In the context of the ‘Duhamel case’, the alleged victim told AFP through his lawyer, Jacqueline Laffont, that he had lodged a complaint against his ex-stepfather, Olivier Duhamel, after the opening of ‘ a preliminary investigation by the Prosecutor’s Office in Paris, ”reads the statement.
Top university shaken
The consequences of the Duhamel case are felt far beyond his family circle.
Scientific director Frederic Mion resigned Tuesday in a letter to professors and students published on the university’s website.
The university is one of France’s best elite schools and has produced five French prime ministers and five French presidents, including current leader Emmanuel Macron.
Over the past month, Mion has been under pressure to resign from student groups after already admitting in 2018 that he had been made aware of the allegations against Duhamel.
In his resignation letter, Mion refers to a report from the Ministry of Education on his handling of the case, and admits that he committed an error of judgment in handling the allegations communicated to me in 2018, as well as inconsistencies in the way I pronounced it. myself on this matter after it broke. ‘
In a statement released on January 7, Mion responded to an article published the day before Le Monde magazine, claiming that he was aware of the allegations, although he initially denied them.
“With no tangible evidence or any further or precise knowledge of the situation, I had a hard time believing that the rumors could be substantiated,” Mion wrote in the statement. He said that discovering through press reports the extent of Duhamel’s alleged actions “was a shock to me personally.”
Former Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti, who was once a colleague of Mion’s at Sciences Po, told CNN in an email on Wednesday that Mion called her when the revelations surrounding Duhamel surfaced a month ago and her apparently said: ‘We must Let no one think we know. ‘
CNN reached Mion but got no response.
Mion is only one of the many members of the French elite affected by the Duhamel scandal.
Jean Veil, a prominent lawyer and old friend of Duhamel, admitted to the Le Monde newspaper that he had been aware of the incest for at least ten years and had called it a “professional secret” to declare his silence.
Camille Kouchner denounced what she saw as the silence of the French intelligentsia in her book.
‘Very fast, the microcosm of people in power, Saint-Germain-des-Prés [a fancy neighborhood on the Left Bank that has long been associated with the French intellectual elite] is informed. Many people knew, and most pretended that nothing had happened, ‘she wrote.
Victims emerge
In addition to the country’s elite where it originated, the Duhamel scandal led to a national scandal in France, with hundreds of alleged victims appearing on social media under the hashtag #MetooInceste. French people took to Twitter to share disturbing stories about child abuse by parents and family members and how the trauma – and the accompanying feeling of shame and isolation – often continued into their adult lives.
Feminist thinker and activist Caroline De Haas, who was one of the initiators of #MeTooIncest, told CNN: “We wanted to show that incest was a political, collective issue.”
She explained the #MeTooIncest movement comes from a desire to shift from the individual story of the Kouchner twins to a collective history of incest.
French lawyers have also seen an increase in the number of victims coming forward to share their stories. Child protection lawyer Marie Grimaud told France Radio on Tuesday that “for three weeks we have received many calls from women realizing that they need to speak, to meet with a lawyer and to lodge a complaint.” In addition to the victims themselves, Grimaud said her office was contacted by people “on behalf of a brother or niece or a niece” who they said could be “in danger”.
Facing Incest has long advocated for a change in legislation to better protect minors from sexual abuse within the family. With the Duhamel scandal that the French media has been covering for more than a month, the government has taken up the matter.
Justice Minister Eric Dupond-Moretti told France 2’s public broadcaster on Tuesday that the government plans to classify any intrusive sexual intercourse with a child under 15 as rape.
Currently, it is necessary to prove coercion, violence, threat or surprise that a sexual relationship with a minor under the age of 15 is considered a serious crime, rather than a lesser offense with a lighter sentence.
“The issue of the victim’s consent will no longer be raised. We will not doubt whether the victim gave consent,” Adrien Taquet, junior children and family minister, told Europe 1 on Tuesday, as they 15 was
In France, incest is legally defined as sexual intercourse between two people related to a degree where marriage is prohibited. In addition to direct family ties, the ban also includes family members through marriage. Thus, divorcees cannot marry a child or parent of their ex-spouse. Civil law does not prohibit marriage between cousins.
In addition, incest is not illegal as long as the relationship is freely matched between people over 15, the age of sexual consent in the country. While rape is prohibited, no matter who the perpetrator is, sexual offenses committed by a family member or ‘any person with authority over the victim’ are more heavily imposed.
Facing Incest said on its Twitter account that the government’s proposals on the age of consent were ‘evasive’ and expressed hope that MPs would bring more clarity while working on the bill.
De Haas told CNN that the current debates surrounding the bill have ‘bothered’ her because of their focus on repressive legislation. “What is needed is a public policy of training and prevention,” she said.
On the broader impact of the Duhamel scandal on French society, De Haas said the case had brought incest to the public debate and made it a high political issue.
“This is due to the legacy of #MeToo,” she said, noting that the movement has brought a realization that sexual violence is not isolated acts but a social and political phenomenon.
Barbara Wojazer and Antonella Francini in Paris and Niamh Kennedy in Dublin contributed to this story.