On Monday January 4, 2021, Le Monde revealed charges of incest against political scientist Olivier Duhamel, who allegedly sexually assaulted one of the sons of former minister Bernard Kouchner. While some see it as the mark of perverse elites, the reality of child crime is quite different.
Victor (a pseudonym) was 14 at the time of the facts denounced by his twin sister, the lawyer Camille Kouchner. Blowjobs imposed by their stepfather, Olivier Duhamel, followed by 30 years of silence. Since January 4, 2021 and the publication of extracts from The big family, a forthcoming book by Camille Kouchner, in Le Monde and L’Obs, the media are massively reporting the case. It must be said that Victor and Camille, now 45 years old, are the children of Bernard Kouchner, doctor and former minister highly publicized during the decades 1990 and 2000, and of the eminent intellectual Évelyne Pisier, now deceased. . As for the accused, he is an influential political scientist, who has just resigned from his post as director of the National Foundation for Political Science ("the flagship of the Sciences Po archipelago", according to the famous school's website), and a speaker on LCI and Europe 1.
This is how these extremely serious denunciations are found archived in the "Star News" section of the Gala site, and analyzed in the people show Morandini Live, on CNews. It is also what pushes many Internet users, sometimes very influential, to disseminate their "analyzes" on the networks: the affair would be the sign that our elites, particularly those of the left (the supposed political edge of the "clan" Kouchner- Duhamel), are morally corrupt and particularly prone to sexually assault children. Rhetoric not only false, but also dangerous for all victims of incest and child crime.
Complotism and social networks
Among the most popular tweets on the subject, that of Karl Zéro, liked and shared nearly 7,000 times in less than 24 hours. The former TV presenter is co-author of 1 of 5 (éd. Télémaque), a work presented as a "manifesto / pamphlet" based on "facts and figures on child crime in France", released mid-November 2020. Bouncing back on the Duhamel affair, Karl Zéro tweets: "#olivierduhamel The guy runs Le Siècle, the National Foundation for Political Science and has been teaching the whole world for ages! I understand better why" 1sur5 "our manifesto against child criminality bothers the media so much". It is implied that there are pedophile political and media networks, which no one dares to denounce except a few brave ones. This speech was already found in early December 2020, on CNews, as part of the promotion of the book. At the microphone of Pascal Praud, Karl Zéro had stated a series of truths (the crying lack of the legal system to protect victims of rape, the existence of a traumatic amnesia which can make speaking very long), but also, conspiratorial rants: the media would never speak of pedocriminality and knowingly hide scandals up to the top of the state …
A quick overview of the comments reveals how much this point of view is shared. Under the YouTube channel and Karl Zéro's tweet, Internet users are sharing en masse links to "documentaries" denouncing so-called satanist and pedophile networks, surreal accusations against journalist Élise Lucet but also elected officials, "especially if they are freemasons" (sic)… Same story when we go back to other pedophile cases, like the Gabriel Matzneff scandal. And for good reason: for decades, the writer has been able to rape children in France, Thailand and the Philippines, then make books about them and make fun of them on television. Enough to fuel the fantasy of an elite more pedophile than the rest of society.
A dangerous smoke screen
Among the arguments in favor of this thesis, we find each time the "fashion", in the 70s and 80s, of free love and uninhibited pleasures. These included relationships with children and teenagers, in other words, rape and sexual touching of minors, presented at the time as a healthy education in pleasure. While it is true that politicians, intellectuals and journalists have actively contributed to the propagation of these ideas (Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Françoise Dolto, the newspaper Liberation, Daniel Cohn-Bendit, etc.), many of them later apologized for their insufferable comments. On the other hand, while a part of the left intelligentsia publicly glossed over the subject, in the shadows and anonymity, pedocriminality was also rife: everywhere and always, children have been raped, society in its own right. together considering them as second-class humans, who can be freely disposed of.
Scientific work on incest in particular shows it: all circles are concerned. In 2017, the CNRS thus published a very comprehensive report, confirming this fact and denouncing the cartoons, including that, in contrast to the Duhamel case, of the working classes more guilty than the others. "We must put an end to the miserable thesis according to which incestuous violence is the prerogative of underprivileged families, sociologist Sylvie Cromer, study coordinator, insisted. This stereotype (…) continues to be rife, in particular, among professionals from all walks of life (police, justice, health, social education, etc.) and in the media, as we saw during the Outreau trial in 2004 . " Consequence of this stereotype? "It shields the apprehension of the ordinary reality of incest", explained the sociologist, and therefore prevents the analysis and containment of the problem. It must therefore be banned from conversations, just like its exact opposite, that of political, intellectual and media spheres which organize themselves as child rape sects. The only difference between rich and poor, according to Sylvie Cromer: "Families with strong economic and cultural capital have strong strategies of denial and maintaining a culture of silence". Victims from these backgrounds having, logically, more means to make their word heard when it becomes available (ability to write books on the subject, networks to be published and interviewed, etc.). Hence the impression that there are more cases in these spheres than elsewhere.
Another danger of this cliché: the theory of "pedophile elites" is fueled by an understandable hatred of the general public vis-à-vis the powerful, but its origin is much more perverse. Indeed, like conspiracy theories generally, it has a political goal: to destabilize the systems in place, as was the case at the time of the Pizzagate. In 2016, in the United States and via the Web, the extreme right had thus popularized the theory according to which a campaign manager of Hillary Clinton animated a pedophile circle, acting in a pizzeria, which had weakened the campaign of the Democrat . More recently, in the US as in France, the Epstein affair has served as fertile ground for anti-Semitic discourse, the billionaire pedophile being also Jewish. And, today, in the wake of the revelations concerning Olivier Duhamel, the fascosphere is unleashed against the "system", its leaders and its necessarily debauched media … A filthy instrumentalization of the words of the victims, who deserve treatment otherwise more respectful of their stories.