The incestuous sins of the soixante-huitards
CAMILLE KOUCHNER WAS IN HER EARLY teens when her twin brother told her that their stepfather, the French political analyst, Olivier Duhamel, had come into his bedroom and seduced him. “Do you think it’s wrong?” the boy asked. More than 30 years on, Kouchner is hazy about the exact timing of the exchange, but she remembers her reply clearly: “Because it’s him, it has to be OK. He’s teaching us, that’s all. We’re not buttoned up.”
Bottling things up, however, is just what Kouchner and others did. La Familia Grande, her memoir of abuse and secrecy at the heart of France’s intelligentsia, is about the resulting damage. The alleged attacks lasted two or three years. The twins were sworn to silence, but Kouchner found it increasingly difficult to live with a pact she felt provided cover for a paedophile. When they mustered the courage to open up to their mother, two decades after the event, she stood by her man. It took another dozen years for Kouchner, now 45, to bear witness publicly.
The publication of La Familia Grande in January had an explosive effect. Duhamel’s prominence cannot be overstated. A renowned constitutional law expert, he was ubiquitous on radio and TV; the august bodies he headed included the Fondation Nationale des Sciences Politiques and Le Siècle, an exclusive for club for politicians, businessmen and journalists; he was regarded as a potential member of the Conseil constitutionnel, which acts as France’s Supreme Court.
When the scandal broke Duhamel resigned from all his positions, tweeting that he was “the target of personal attacks”
