The mayor of Paris Anne Hidalgo seizes her general inspectorate to carry out “a control mission” on numerous alleged acts of harassment committed by civil servants in the museums managed by the City, and described in an article by our colleagues from Release.
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 “Paris-Musées public establishment”, which manages the fourteen municipal museums, announces the latter in a press release.
Cases of sexual or moral harassment
Anne Hidalgo asks her inspectors in particular to check “that all alerts have been taken into account and that responses have been provided”.
In a survey published on April 9, Release collected about 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.
“Sanctions when the facts are proven”
The management of Paris-Musées affirms that “any report of harassment or discrimination has given rise to the opening of a procedure”, has “been the subject of 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 pronounced , ranging from the warning to the revocation”, still affirms the management.
“All the situations mentioned by the newspaper Release are subject to treatment according to this procedure”, says Paris-Musées, which says that it cannot give the details of the cases or the sanctions for reasons of confidentiality.
An “action plan” in preparation
“For some, the steps have already been completed” such as at the Palais Galliera, the Petit Palais, the archaeological crypt on the Ile de la Cité and the Catacombs, “for others, they are in progress”, such as at the Museum of modern art in Paris or at the Carnavalet museum, adds the management.
Paris-Musées also indicates that it has prepared “an 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”.