She was to be the spearhead in the fight against incest in France.
The "ideal profile", we say to the government.
And now Elisabeth Guigou, appointed on December 10 at the head of an independent commission on sexual violence against children, is already invited by an associative world in turmoil to leave the ship for the good of the cause, while her name has just arisen in the Olivier Duhamel affair.
“Can Elisabeth Guigou stay?
This is the question asked by the five administrators of Facing Incest, one of the main associations to fight this taboo in France, meeting by videoconference on the evening of January 7.
PODCAST. The Olivier Duhamel affair: Camille Kouchner's shocking book that breaks the taboo of incest
Three days earlier, the scandal erupted with the publication in Le Monde and L'Obs of the good sheets of "La Familia Grande".
The author of the book, Camille Kouchner, daughter of former minister Bernard Kouchner, reveals that her twin brother was the victim of incest by his stepfather, the renowned political scientist Olivier Duhamel, when he was 14 years old.
Their mother Évelyne Pisier, a lawyer who is now deceased, was not made aware until 2008 while other relatives, including her sister, actress Marie-France Pisier - who committed suicide in 2011 - learned later.
Elisabeth Guigou denies having knowledge of it
Incest.
The word is out and this sudden light thrown on the greatest of taboos should delight child protection associations.
Las, Elisabeth Guigou, 74, supposed to embody this fight for the next two years, belongs to the network of the Pisier-Duhamel family.
Did she know of the terrible secret?
Camille Kouchner writes, speaking of one of the parents' friends, about sexual abuse: “Recently, one of them said to me, worried:
You don't realize!
Dozens and dozens of people are aware…
”If the secret had never been put in the public place, it emerges from the fire of the daughter of Evelyne Pisier and Bernard Kouchner, born in 1975, that a part friends, relations of the Pisier-Duhamel family, and even more broadly of the Parisian intelligentsia, had heard of these accusations but remained silent to avoid the scandal.
Morning essentials newsletter
A tour of the news to start the day
Subscribe to the newsletterAll newsletters
Thus, after having initially expressed his "amazement" by discovering "through press articles, very serious facts alleged against the former president of the National Foundation of Political Sciences
(Editor's note: Olivier Duhamel)
", the Director of Sciences-po Paris, Frédéric Mion, he then admitted having been alerted in 2019 of suspicions of incest against this pillar of the school.
READ ALSO>
Olivier Duhamel case: four questions of law on a complex case
Elisabeth Guigou, she defended herself in L'Obs and in an interview with the online media Loopsider, to have been aware of these accusations.
She claims to have "discovered this story in the press".
"We all rub shoulders with victims and attackers without knowing it," said the former Minister of Justice, who praised "the courage of Camille Kouchner" and even invited her to come and testify before his future commission.
"I immediately sent him a message
(Editor's note: when the article in Le Monde appeared)
to tell him
I imagine your suffering, that of your family and if you want to express yourself before the commission, say so me,
”says Ms. Guigou.
"She's off the mark"
"There is absolutely nothing that allows us to say that she would be an accomplice, she does not seem to appear in the intimates of the family, and she is not the kind of girl to whom we so want to make confidences ”, defends, in his own way, a left parliamentarian.
And to continue: “But what is true is that she has a problem of legitimacy: she talks about these subjects in a dated way, a little distant.
She is missing the point.
"
The Duhamel affair indeed appears as a new hitch in the already contested CV of Elisabeth Guigou.
“We were surprised upon his appointment.
There were many other people who could have taken this place, and it is not in its area of expertise, it is not known as particularly legitimate ”, confides Isabelle Aubry, president of Face à l '. incest, author of “The First Time I Was 6 Years
Old
”
(XO editions, expanded reissue to be published at the end of January)
, which was among the first auditioned by the brand new commission at the end of December.
Psychiatrist Muriel Salmona, a specialist in trauma related to sexual violence, was also heard, just before Christmas.
“I found myself having to explain the major issues of the subject, as if we were starting from scratch…” she breathes.
Two weeks later the Duhamel affair arose, and these same activists in the fight against incest discovered in "La Familia Grande" that a photo of Camille Kouchner as a child, naked, was displayed in the holiday home of Sanary-sur. -Mer (Var), where the couple's friends, like Elisabeth Guigou, marched.
"Has she seen this photo?"
What did she think of it?
Could other suspicious clues have alerted him at the time?
“Asks the association Facing incest, in their press release posted on January 7.
His comments on DSK shocked
The same were also moved by his words about his former friend DSK, in the documentary Room 2806 broadcast on Netflix, and which looks back on the Sofitel affair at the origin of the fall of the former head of the IMF.
The arguments she puts forward to justify the defense of her socialist colleague at the time of the facts were not convincing.
"Why would (DSK) need to do it
(to rape, editor's note)
?
"," He is a charming, brilliant, intelligent man, he can be funny at times, "she said to herself at the time.
A discourse imbued with sexist stereotypes and marked by “the culture of rape” denounced by the feminist sphere.
Unfortunately, the former minister has become the object of controversy on Twitter where many figures in the fight against sexual violence challenge him.
The novelist Tristane Banon, who sued DSK for attempted rape and one of the first to denounce her actions, did not fail to speak on social networks after the revelation of the Duhamel affair.
"Say Madame @elisabethguigou, you have strangely chosen your associates before taking the presidency of the commission on sexual violence committed against children last December.
From DSK to #OlivierDuhamel, you are flawless!
»She reacted on Twitter.
While another figure in the fight against violence against women, the former elected environmentalist Sandrine Rousseau, who in 2016 helped bring the Baupin affair to the fore, was even more direct, always on Twitter: “He it would be important, just and noble to resign from this commission on sexual violence against children.
Of course, you are not guilty of anything, but you are compromised with too much.
You would come out grown up.
"
"In all dignity, she should go"
In her interview with Loopsider, Elisabeth Guigou insists on the “inconceivable” nature of incest in an “apparently happy family, with gay children”.
“She says herself like everyone else… We can expect more from a former Minister of Justice, an experienced politician.
That makes a lot.
This is too much.
I think that in all dignity, she should leave ”, asserts the psychiatrist and president of the association Traumatic memory and victimology, Muriel Salmona.
“It's not our practice to ask someone's head, and we won't.
But the Duhamel affair weakens Ms. Guigou in her position, agrees Isabelle Aubry, the spokesperson for Face à inceste.
It is up to her and to those who appointed her to assume their responsibilities.
"
READ ALSO>
Duhamel affair: "How did he manage to live with that on his conscience?"
»Asks his ex-friend Patrick Rotman
As for Lyes Louffok, member of the National Council for Child Protection, he challenged on Twitter the Secretary of State for Children and Families, Adrien Taquet, saying that "for the serenity of the work, it is surely desirable to replace her
(Editor's note: Elisabeth Guigou)
”.
The support of Secretary of State Adrien Taquet
But in the government, the latter holds the bar and opposes these appeals with his foot unwavering support for the former Minister of Justice.
It is moreover his office which answers in place of Elisabeth Guigou who, it, did not follow up on our requests.
And the discourse does not vary: this fine connoisseur of the workings of the State, known to the French, and creator of the first pediatric reception unit Enfance en danger at the end of the 1990s, corresponds well to the "ideal profile" that Adrien Taquet was looking to chair this commission.
Close the ban.
"She's a hard worker, we can't take that away from her," blows the parliamentarian.
As for the associations, despite an obvious concern, no one wants to be the one who will throw the first shovelful of soil on a brand new commission, of which only two members have already been appointed - the general inspector for social affairs, Geneviève Gueydan, and the coordinator of medico-legal emergencies at Hôtel-Dieu (AP-HP) in Paris, Caroline Rey-Salmon.
“After all, when Jacques Toubon became Defender of Rights, no one was thrilled.
And when he left, we all praised his work, ”hopes Muriel Salmona.
“On incest, I have the impression of climbing the same stone at the top of the hill for twenty years, without result, and this commission is a ray of hope: we do not want to break everything, abounds Isabelle Aubry.
Finally, this subject is treated as a social problem.
We must not break this momentum.
"