The administrative court of Paris has confirmed the legality of the temporary eviction of a piano professor from the Regional Conservatory of Paris, located on rue de Madrid in the 8th arrondissement, following “inappropriate gestures” and “inappropriate behavior” towards his students.
This piano professor, who has been teaching at the Regional Conservatory of Paris for twenty years, was the subject of an administrative investigation following allegations of “sexual and sexist violence”: a young woman had reported his “inappropriate behavior” between September 2015 and September 2019, when she was between 16 and 20 years old, such as “touching her chest,” “ambiguous text messages,” and “ambiguous gestures.” Another woman who was interviewed described “inappropriate acts that occurred at his home and at the conservatory.” She also spoke of the professor’s “unclear intentions,” “harassment through text messages and constant gestures,” with the incidents happening regularly for “four years.”
In addition to these testimonies, other students had experienced his “offensive and even humiliating attitude”: he had told “a young student” that she couldn’t play a piece properly because of her “big breasts,” and addressed a panicked young student by asking if he “couldn’t think with his bird brain.” The piano professor had also referred to an 11-year-old child as “the two-bit scientist” and “the raccoon, which zoo did you come from.” The mother of another student had requested a change of teacher to “escape his influence.”
Initially, the professor had been “suspended” temporarily by the Mayor of Paris, Anne Hidalgo, on January 26, 2022, before being “reintegrated into the Cultural Affairs Department” as a “study mission on his musical discipline.” His “temporary exclusion” of eighteen months was decided on January 3, 2023.
The administrative court of Paris has validated the legality of his “suspension” and eighteen-month “exclusion,” but criticized his assignment as a “study mission on his musical discipline” as being vague and without any real substance. The court agreed with the professor’s argument that this mission essentially deprived him of any meaningful function.
The court found nothing to fault in the legality of his temporary eviction. The judges acknowledged that he was unable to understand the impact of his remarks on young students who may not have the intellectual capacity or psychological strength to perceive any possible irony. The court also noted that there were allegations of “sexist remarks” made during juries, but the evidence presented did not establish these claims.
Although the Conservatory’s internal regulations prohibited teachers from forcing students to take private lessons, giving occasional free or paid lessons at the request of students was not explicitly forbidden. The court acknowledged that this practice, while regrettable, was widely shared among conservatory professors.
These judgments ultimately represent a criticism of the piano professor from the Regional Conservatory, who initially succeeded in temporarily suspending his sanction through the interim judge of the same administrative court of Paris. The City of Paris had been ordered to pay him 1,500 euros in legal fees on February 17, 2023.
The piano professor now has until November 25, 2023, to contest the judgments before the administrative court of appeal of Paris. In criminal terms, a preliminary investigation has been opened by the juvenile prosecutor’s office for “sexual assault on a minor by a person in authority,” as revealed in an email from a judicial police officer dated February 28, 2022.
