The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo seizes her general inspection to lead “a mission of controlon numerous alleged acts of harassment committed by civil servants in museums managed by the City and described in an article in Liberation.
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The former PS candidate for the presidential election seized the General Inspectorate of the City of Paris “following the publication of press articles highlighting acts of harassment and racism within several museums of the public establishment Paris Musées“, which manages the fourteen municipal museums, announces the latter in a press release. Anne Hidalgo asks her inspectors in particular to check “that all alerts have been taken into account and that responses have been provided“.
Twenty testimonials
In a survey published on April 9, Liberation collected around twenty testimonies reporting numerous cases of sexual or moral harassment, homophobic, racist and misogynistic remarks, even attacks in at least six of the fourteen museums. According to the testimonies collected, these behaviors are the work of agents with the status of civil servants and their victims are mostly temporary workers with precarious status, with younger and female profiles.
Asked by AFP, the management of Paris Musées affirms that “any report of harassment or discrimination has given rise to the initiation of a procedure“, has “is subject to treatment and follow-up, and is accompanied by sanctions when the facts are proven“. At the end of the procedure, which provides for “the immediate protection of the victim (limitation of contacts, temporary suspension, removal of the agent in question, etc.)» and an internal investigation, «several types of sanctions can then be imposed, ranging from a warning to dismissal», Says the management again.
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“All situations mentioned by the Liberation newspaper are handled according to this procedure.“, says Paris Musées, which says it cannot give the details of the cases or the sanctions for reasons of confidentiality. “For some, the process has already been completed” as in the Palais Galliera, the Petit Palais, the archaeological crypt of the Ile de la Cité and the Catacombs, “for others, they are in progress“, as at the Museum of Modern Art in Paris or the Carnavalet Museum, adds the management. Paris Musées also indicates that it has preparedan action plan to strengthen the protection of victims and the processing of reports, which will be presented in the coming days to the trade unions“.