“The prefect called me to ask me the same question as you!
So there really, that even the prefect does not know, it's incredible!
At the end of the line this Thursday afternoon, the curiosity of the mayor (SE) of Jouy-en-Josas (Yvelines), Marie-Hélène Aubert, is piqued.
Professor Luc Montagnier, honorary citizen of his town in 2009, whose research offices were in Jouy, is he really dead?
Rumors have swelled since the publication on Wednesday of an article in France Soir according to which the 2008 Nobel Prize in Medicine died on Tuesday.
The site, a haven for personalities critical of the health management of the health crisis linked to Covid-19 and vaccination (even relaying conspiracy theories), recently interviewed the scientist on several occasions.
He has especially become known in recent months for his controversial remarks on the coronavirus.
Read alsoXavier Azalbert, the finance pro who made France Soir a conspiratorial site
This Thursday at the end of the afternoon, Liberation finally announced the death of Professor Montagnier on the basis of two sources, one political, the other medical.
The town hall of Neuilly, where the American hospital in which the professor ended his days is located, also confirmed the news to the Parisian, on the basis of the death certificate.
Luc Montagnier died there on Tuesday evening.
“Media Silence”
Colleagues, local actors likely to have crossed his path… Nobody, until the highlighting of this death certificate, had been able to confirm or officially deny this news, an essential step before the publication of a possible article.
“The American hospital in Neuilly does not confirm or deny any information, we have given no information, we have made no comment”, the hospital told us again at the start of the afternoon on Thursday.
In the absence of official confirmation, the death of Luc Montagnier, which required verification with informed interlocutors or the family, could not be announced more quickly.
Followers of the conspiracy theory believed to see there a form of censorship of the media against a controversial figure.
Some have made reference to Luc Montagnier on Twitter under a recent publication by Emmanuel Macron, as if to invite the head of state to speak about an allegedly concealed death.
“We have never asked the government to confirm or deny the death of someone”, annoys a ministerial adviser.
pic.twitter.com/soEUyVyJGf
— Green Baizuo (@GreenDave16) February 10, 2022
Others have insinuated that this silence was orchestrated.
“That should be easy to check,” one of them says.
In fact, less than it seemed.
Public figures such as former lawyer Gilbert Collard, recently rallied to candidate Éric Zemmour, shared the news, not failing to scratch this “media silence”.
Professor #Montagnier, Nobel Prize in Medicine who co-discovered the AIDS virus, has just died in a media silence that honors him more than all the hype: in this world of bluster, there is now the great cross of silence !
Src video: NobelPrize (2008) pic.twitter.com/MpjJXeFuwb
— Gilbert Collard (@GilbertCollard) February 10, 2022
In reality, our editorial team has launched many avenues to have the information confirmed since the publication of the France Soir article on Wednesday.
No other media had managed to do so for lack of informed contact of the death, but the information from the site was widely disseminated.
"The majority of sane scientists have distanced themselves from him"
By dint of sharing, the news reached an audience who, from near or far, had a link with Luc Montagnier.
"I saw that this morning and I took it at face value, I asked that we do a post
in memoriam
on the municipality's website, it was still someone here, told us, before the official confirmation, Marie-Hélène Aubert, the mayor of Jouy-en-Josas.
But now, I have a doubt…”
Doubt persisted even in the town of Chabris (Indre), where Luc Montagnier had been born 89 years earlier.
"I know he was born here and I learned of his death on a Facebook post, but we have not received any official document at the town hall", confided to us this Thursday morning an employee of the town hall.
Read alsoCoronavirus and HIV: why Professor Luc Montagnier's theory is implausible
Among those likely to confirm the news, many told us that they had cut ties with the controversial scientist.
Virologist Christine Rouzioux, a member of the team that discovered HIV, knew Professor Luc Montagnier well.
She says she is "catastrophized" by her positions in recent years and had no more contact with the Nobel Prize.
“The majority of sane scientists have moved away from him,” she says.
Government informed?
Doctor Willy Rozenbaum, who also contributed to the discovery of HIV, told us this Thursday at midday that he had “no information and no contact with Mr. Montagnier for at least 20 years”.
“He had strayed too far from the scientific sphere and hardly aroused sufficient empathy to maintain a link, even social,” he develops.
According to our information, the immunologist Françoise Barré-Sinoussi, co-recipient of the Nobel Prize for Medicine with Luc Montagnier in 2008, has been repeating in recent hours to those who questioned her about this death that it was "a priori only a rumor ".
But she herself was no longer in direct contact with the latter.
Silence also on the side of the Nobel Academy in Sweden which had given them the precious title and was not able to confirm the news this Thursday at the end of the afternoon.
Being a decorated scientist who originally enjoyed a solid reputation, the top of the state could have been informed of this death.
But within the government, the mystery hovered.
“I think we would have been informed if that had been the case,” a ministerial source told us Thursday morning.
In reality not necessarily, as the outcome of the story has shown.