Investigations are piling up around Olivier Duhamel.
According to our information, the Paris Bar Council voted this week to open disciplinary proceedings against the political scientist, who was also a lawyer.
Given the charges of incest to which he has been the subject since the publication of the book by his daughter-in-law Camille Kouchner - accusations that he has not denied - his peers wonder whether he was morally capable of s 'register with the bar.
"It's a question of principle," observes a source close to the matter.
With his past that he does not dispute, should he have given up becoming a lawyer?
This civil procedure, which will take several months, is completely independent of the criminal investigation opened by the Paris prosecutor's office.
In December 2010, then at the height of his intellectual and media aura, Olivier Duhamel joined the cabinet of his friend the criminal lawyer Jean Veil, as an advisor.
To do this, he had therefore taken an oath.
Even though his photo has disappeared from the firm's website since the scandal was revealed, he still remains at the bar.
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The procedure was initiated last Tuesday by a vote of the council of the order.
Two members of the ordinal authority have been appointed to investigate the case and will submit a report within four months.
“Their job will be to qualify the grievances that could possibly be held against him, decrypts an informed source.
It is necessary to see which text could apply, probably on the obligations of dignity of the profession.
»At the end of the submission of this report, the disciplinary formation of the bar meets and hears all the protagonists.
It has a range of sanctions which can go as far as cancellation.
The case can also end with a simple admonition.
"This is a new and complex question"
The Duhamel case is out of the ordinary of the 300 or so disciplinary proceedings that the Paris Bar deals with each year.
"It's a new and complex question," admits a Parisian lawyer.
Contacted, the President of the Bar of Paris Me Olivier Cousi does not wish to comment on the merits of the case.
“Self-regulation of the profession is one of the missions that we have always carried out effectively,” he underlines.
Olivier Duhamel's lawyer could not be reached this Friday to react.
At the same time as this procedure, the resigning president of the National Foundation for Political Science is the subject of a preliminary investigation opened on January 5 in Paris for "rape and sexual assault by a person having authority over a 15-year-old minor and rape and sexual assault by person in authority ”.
These investigations follow the publication of Camille Kouchner's book “La Familia Grande” (Threshold) in which the academic reveals that his stepfather abused his twin brother when he was a teenager.
A previous investigation into the same facts was closed in 2011 because of the limitation period.
To date, Olivier Duhamel has not yet been heard by the police of the brigade for the protection of minors.
