Although he confessed to the sexual abuse of his then underage stepson, the former foundation president (2016 to 2021) of the Paris elite university Sciences Po, Olivier Duhamel, does not have to answer criminally.
The French judiciary has suspended the investigation against the 71-year-old lawyer due to the statute of limitations, as the public prosecutor in Paris announced on Monday.
Michaela Wiegel
Political correspondent based in Paris.
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The abuse scandal has shaken trust in the leadership of the university and, moreover, in the political and intellectual elite in the French capital for a long time. Sciences-Po director Frédéric Mion and other members of the board of trustees had to resign. The traditional university is currently run by an interim director. The abuse victim's twin sister, Camille Kouchner, had exposed the scandal.
The daughter of the well-known minister and co-founder of the aid organization Doctors Without Borders, Bernard Kouchner, denounced above all the omertà of the Parisian elite in her book “La familia grande”. Many would have known, but signed a pact of silence with the influential perpetrator. The author saw beforehand that her stepfather had secured himself legally. Because of the statute of limitations he will not have to answer in court, she complained in the book. In France there is a debate about whether the statute of limitations for sexual abuse should not be lifted.