The Director of Sciences Po, Mathias Vicherat and his partner were placed in custody on Sunday. Both of them accuse each other of “reciprocal domestic violence.”
New turbulence for the elite school, which has been shaken in recent years by several scandals. This Sunday, Mathias Vicherat, director of Sciences Po Paris, was placed in police custody, along with his partner: both accused each other of domestic violence. The custody was lifted on Monday. The Dépêche du Midi reported.
Why this custody?
Mathias Vicherat and his partner were placed in custody at the 7th arrondissement police station on Sunday evening, after denouncing “reciprocal domestic violence.” However, neither of them wanted to file a complaint. Investigators are currently conducting verifications.
What do we know about Mathias Vicherat?
Mathias Vicherat, 45, succeeded Frédéric Mion as head of Sciences Po Paris in November 2021. A former student at Sciences Po, from which he graduated in 2000, Mathias Vicherat is a former classmate of Emmanuel Macron at ENA. He is described as an ambitious all-rounder with a solid network. He served at the Directorate General of the National Police (DGPN) before becoming the chief of staff for Paris Mayor Bertrand Delanoë and then Anne Hidalgo, deputy general manager of SNCF, and then secretary-general of Danone. He was in a relationship with the journalist Marie Drucker, with whom he had a son in 2015. He published a book in 2001 on French rap, “For a textual analysis of French rap.”
Why does this case shake Sciences Po so much?
Often presented as the maker of the French elite, Sciences Po Paris has accumulated setbacks and scandals around its leaders for around ten years, without tarnishing its academic prestige. Thus, Mathias Vicherat succeeded Frédéric Mion, who was forced to resign in February 2022 for concealing suspicions of incest against the political scientist Olivier Duhamel. At the time, he was the president of the National Foundation for Political Science (FNSP), which oversees Sciences Po Paris, also known as “the school on Rue Saint-Guillaume,” where it has its headquarters in Paris. In the wake of the Duhamel scandal, a movement denouncing sexual violence in political science institutes (IEPs) emerged, initially on social media.
