Director of France’s elite Sciences Po steps down over Duhamel abuse scandal

The director of France’s elite Sciences Po university resigned Tuesday after it emerged he had known for years about sexual abuse allegations against the school board’s former president.

In a book released in early January, lawyer Camille Kouchner accused one of France’s most prominent political scientists, Olivier Duhamel, her stepfather, of sexually abusing her twin brother when they were teenagers. 

Duhamel was the president of the 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. Duhamel stepped down from his position shortly before the first extracts of the book were published in Le Monde. He has declined to comment to media outlets on the accusations.

Suspicions mounted in the following weeks about who in the French political establishment might have known about the allegations before they were aired publicly.

Frédéric Mion, the director of Sciences Po, initially said he was not aware of the allegations and was “in shock” over the book’s revelations. Shortly after, it emerged that he had been told about the allegations two years before by former Socialist Culture Minister Aurélie Filippetti.

Mion acknowledged “errors of judgment in processing the allegations of which I had been made aware in 2018, as well as inconsistencies in the way I spoke publicly about the unfolding of the case,” in a statement sent to the school’s staff and students announcing his resignation, reported by French media.

Marc Guillaume, current prefect of the Paris region — the highest-ranking representative of the French State at the local level — also acknowledged in front of an administrative investigative committee that he was aware of “sexual problems” relating to Duhamel, news magazine Marianne reported Tuesday.

Guillaume, who previously served as a secretary general under the governments of both François Hollande and Emmanuel Macron until last year, stepped down from the Sciences Po board in January.