Between two sobs, Inès* recounts at the bar of the criminal court these few months spent in the corridors of what was not yet called the IHU, but which was indeed directed by Didier Raoult in Marseille.
The words are piling up at a sustained speed in the great hall of the extraordinary trial in which this trial for moral harassment, sexual harassment and sexual assault is held for two days within the structure headed by the prestigious professor.
Originally from Tunisia, where she is studying engineering, Inès arrives in France in February 2015 for an end-of-study internship in this complex led by Didier Raoult.
His internship supervisor is a certain Marc*, a brilliant researcher who quickly rose to prominence.
In the first weeks, the hurtful words of Marc hurt his intern.
“He kept criticizing me,” she says in tears.
He said I was good for nothing, that I was nothing but shit.
»
"He rubbed against me"
According to her, Marc's attitude changes suddenly, in the spring.
“He started caressing me, touching me, sobs Inès.
That's when he became adorable with me.
An angel.
I had no more complaints about the quality of my work.
And suddenly, each time we had the meeting, he called me aside in his office and he closed the door so that no one could see.
And when he called me, he was either rubbing against me or trying to kiss me.
He touched my breasts, my crotch.
»
An attitude that pushes Inès to no longer put on a skirt, in the hope of not reliving these scenes, which will however happen several times according to her.
"I wanted to film it at least to have tangible proof," she says.
In my head it's my word against his.
I am the young foreigner who comes for an internship against a research director.
»
"It's time for the blowjob"
A research director who is accused by another former colleague, Khadija*, of having also had an inappropriate attitude on several occasions.
In the laboratory, at a fixed time, Marc would say regularly: “It's 4 pm, it's pipe time.
Who wants to stick to it?
“At the beginning, it shocked me so much that I acted as if I did not hear, reports Khadjia.
I thought it was a little heavy flirting.
He told me that he had never gone out with a Tunisian woman, that he had never kissed a Tunisian woman, never slept with a pregnant woman.
Pregnant, he told me: "You turn me on even more."
»
Repeated messages, in particular by SMS, which are even worth tensions in the couple of Khadija, and an intervention of Marc with her husband to assure him that there is nothing between them.
The young woman also recounts Marc's recurring "wandering hands".
"It was the hair, the neck," she says.
If ever I was down, leg, thigh, buttocks.
»
If he denies any sexual assault at the bar of the eighth chamber of the criminal court, Marc justifies his behavior with humor.
“I am someone who likes to make a lot of jokes”, he says, before recounting being in a particular period of his life at the time of the facts.
“My wife had been diagnosed with breast cancer, and I had just made a major discovery,” he explains.
At this time, I may be more aggressive and, perhaps, my gritty jokes have been more.
Today revoked, after an internal CNRS investigation and a report to the prosecution in 2017, the former IHU researcher faces seven years in prison.
*Names have been changed
Health
Marseille: Didier Raoult accused of "serious breaches" by the health authorities
Health
Marseille: Didier Raoult settles his accounts and intends to clear his honor in court
sexual assault
Sexual harassment
Moral harassment
Didier Raoult
Marseilles
Paca