The pulse of the CentraleSupélec campus continues to beat and the next “big night” is already looming.
The prestigious engineering school is however stunned by an investigation revealing that a hundred of its students were victims of rape and sexual assault last year.
The study had the effect of a bomb.
Conducted with 2,386 students, the study conducted by the management at the request of the association for the fight against sexism Çapèse, reveals that 51 women and 23 men were victims of sexual harassment, 46 women and men of sexual assault. and 20 women and 8 men raped between 2020 and 2021.
The aggressors, most often comrades
“Our surprise, in absolute terms, is not that there is gender-based and sexual violence. It is the gap between the absence of precursor signals and the level revealed by this investigation, ”underlines Romain Soubeyran, the director. The study, based on an anonymous questionnaire, reveals that the attackers are most often comrades and that the facts "would have taken place in an associative context or within the student residence". In other words: especially during the famous evenings where alcohol flows freely, high masses serving as an outlet for these young people who have entered school after two (or three) years in the most selective preparatory classes.
However, they "never saw anything in the evenings".
Mattis, Thomas and Solène, first year students crossed by AFP on the esplanade and in the refectory, are "a little shocked" but above all formal: the parties organized by the various student associations in the large buildings of the campus are very framed.
The gendarmerie even comes to assist and prefectural decrees formalize them, breathes Emilie Roger, HR development manager and in charge of gender equality at school.
In student residences
So where ?
In student residences, especially those housing shared flats, all of the people interviewed by AFP are analyzed.
In 2020, pandemic time, the parties moved to homes on campus, in these brand-new cubes next to each other.
Alcoholic guests go from building to building, from room to room, in these sets managed by private operators where the school management "is not authorized to intervene", deplores Emilie Roger.
"We are aware of these problems but we had no idea of their extent", sums up Mattis Drocourt, in first year, who reflects: "I think that it is happening before our eyes without us realizing it. .
There is really a lot of alcohol and the notion of consent is becoming problematic ”.
Measures taken since the investigation
“We thought we had devices that worked,” laments Emilie Roger, who does not hesitate to use the words “rape culture” in the face of the scale of the phenomenon.
The manager mentions the measures taken since this investigation: provision of psychologists, lawyers, participation in legal fees, reinforcement of awareness campaigns already well established on the campus.
"It was not credible to imagine that nothing was happening at CentraleSupélec while elsewhere, yes", explains Ibtissam Hamich, 21 years old and president of Çapèse, the association which carried out the study and whose volunteers are present at the evenings.
Similar surveys in other universities?
"What emerges (from the questionnaire) far too often is the fear of not being believed", she denounces to justify the fact that to date, no complaint has been filed.
Following the report from the school, the Evry prosecutor's office, however, opened a preliminary investigation for acts of sexual harassment, sexual assault and rape.
"For nearly a third of the French, at the origin of a rape, there is often a misunderstanding", analyzes Emilie Roger, who wants similar investigations to tackle the problem in others. universities or schools.
Friday, a super-evening was planned at CentraleSupélec.
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