A preliminary investigation has been opened for rape and sexual assault following a questionnaire carried out internally at the Ecole Polytechnique and according to which one in four students has been the victim of sexual assault there since the start of her schooling, said Thursday the prosecution of Evry to AFP.
While eleven students in total say they have been victims of rape or attempted rape, this opening of an investigation comes seven months after that targeting CentraleSupélec, where an internal study had also reported a hundred acts of sexual harassment, assault sex or rape during the academic year.
In both cases, the management of the establishments had sent a report to the Evry public prosecutor's office, these schools being located on the Saclay plateau, in Essonne.
According to the prosecution, the Polytechnique report led to the opening of this investigation on Wednesday, entrusted to the research brigade of the Palaiseau gendarmerie.
“We decided to react immediately”
The investigation was opened for "rape", "sexual assault" and "attempted sexual assault and rape", said the prosecution of Evry, confirming information from France Inter.
“The École Polytechnique has not yet been notified of the opening of this investigation and is at the disposal of the investigators,” the management of the prestigious engineering school reacted to AFP on Thursday.
The questionnaire, conducted from January 19 to February 6 in consultation with the students, "follows the actions committed at CentraleSupélec", had justified the management of Polytechnique earlier in the week.
“We decided to react immediately by launching an investigation ourselves to find out what was going on at the Ecole Polytechnique,” François Bouchet, director general of the military school, told AFP on Tuesday.
60% responses
At Polytechnique, the questionnaire was completed by around 2,100 young people out of the 3,300 who joined X between 2018 and 2021, “i.e. more than 60% of responses, a very high participation”, noted the director general.
“We suspected that there would be cases of sexist and sexual violence that would come up, harassment, exhibitionism, unwanted contact, because we also have a listening unit which had been seized of certain cases”, has underlined François Bouchet.
According to the survey, 23% of students – overwhelmingly women – say they have been sexually assaulted during their schooling: we rubbed against them, we touched their breasts, their buttocks, we kissed them against their will.
More specifically, eleven people have declared themselves victims of attempted rape or rape during their years at l'X, as this establishment is nicknamed.
“We are in shock, I did not think that this questionnaire would lead to an inventory of attempted rape or rape,” added François Bouchet.
“These revealed facts of great gravity are unacceptable.
We must mobilize to free up speech and further improve our action plan launched in 2017,” he said.
“Workshops on gender-based and sexual violence will be made compulsory for all students from next June”.
Polytechnique, founded in 1794, is one of the French “grandes écoles”.
Napoleon I made it a military institution in 1804.
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