Camille Kouchner: what she "expects" from Olivier Duhamel after the release of "La Familia Grande": Femme Actuelle Le MAG

It’s a tsunami-like book. A necessary book, to be put into everyone's hands, which frees people to speak about incest and the mechanisms of silence surrounding this crime. In La Familia Grande, published Thursday January 7, 2021 by Editions du Seuil, lawyer Camille Kouchner accuses her father-in-law, the famous constitutionalist Olivier Duhamel, of having abused his twin brother during incestuous sexual assaults. The author writes that Olivier Duhamel subjected “Blowjobs” to his stepson “Victor” – the first name was changed by Camille Kouchner to preserve his anonymity – from the age of 13, and for several years. Camille Kouchner also reveals that Olivier Duhamel was long adored by the three children of his wife, Evelyne Pisier, and that he has long filled the absence of the biological father, former minister Bernard Kouchner, described in the book as being too busy (and who has since proven her love and support for her children, she adds). Finally, Camille Kouchner tells how her mother preferred to protect her husband until his death in 2017, “Giving up” his own children. Three days before the book's release, Olivier Duhamel announced his resignation via Twitter. For lack of trial, the political scientist remains, for the time being, presumed innocent. The Paris prosecutor's office, however, opened a preliminary investigation on January 5, the aim being to discover possible new victims and to verify the limitation periods. Thursday January 13, one week after the publication of La Familia Grande, Camille Kouchner was the guest of François Busnel in The Great Bookstore, broadcast on France 5. On set, the writer delivered a poignant and important testimony about her family history, and incest in general. An interview during which she of course evoked the current fate of her stepfather.

"I had to be silent for years, 30 years of silence. Now the silence is for him"

At the end of the interview, the literary journalist asks Camille Kouchner: "And for your stepfather, what are you waiting for?" The author then replies, with force and sincerity: “My stepfather, I put him in this book, I would like him to stay in this book (…) Reality is very difficult because he's my stepfather. And that’s incest, actually. Which makes it hard at the end of the end. He did something that is unforgivable. Unforgivable. So I don't forgive him. I had to keep quiet for years. 30 years of silence. So now the silence is for him. I had to live with that reality. " The 45-year-old lawyer continues: “There was a moment when I said to myself 'Ok, the law does not allow a conviction' and besides, I don't even know if I would be able to condemn him through legal channels, so much the law scares me. . And yet, this has been my reality for years, the reality of my brothers and sisters, the reality of my cousins, the reality of my aunt, etc. And he, for a while, has been living outside this reality, it seems to be going very well. ” Camille Kouchner adds, still referring to Olivier Duhamel:I find that unfair. We have a reality that he is the only one to have created … well you have to live with it. We're all going to live with it. We cannot take that away from us. It's not even a question of punishment, he just has to hear that it's unforgivable and that it will last a lifetime, and there, now, we are in the process, us, with my brothers and my sister , no doubt, to talk about it to our children, to try to explain, why sometimes things do not go well. ” Camille Kouchner concludes, with modesty, when François Busnel believes that books can sometimes represent a "jail" : "I would like it to stay in this book."

Read also : Incest: 4 million French people have been victims