François Durpaire, French historian, faces rape allegations
After being accused of rape, a well-known historian on French television is now the subject of an investigation.
According to reports, the lady and François Durpaire, a 51-year-old expert on the US, had a transient connection in 2011. The claimed victim reported that Durpaire assaulted her when she went to his residence in Paris in May of that year to discuss why their relationship ended. He called the accusations “unfounded.”
Before deciding to call the police, the woman is believed to have spoken with François Durpaire once more about the alleged attack in 2020.
Durpaire’s lawyer, Dorothée Bisaccia-Bernstein, told Le Parisien: “He has been hearing about these accusations for several months and this opening of the official investigation has reassured him as it allows him to know what he is accused of. This will allow the truth to come out. Mr Durpaire will give his explanation during questioning [by an investigating judge] that will take place in a few weeks.”
On his website, François Durpaire, a professor at the University of Cergy-Pontoise, northwest of Paris, calls himself a “happiness historian.”
To determine whether people were happier today than in the past, he established the first “happiness laboratory” in Europe. The study’s goal was to investigate the “basic question: Can we learn to be happy?”
Read: The Rising Cases of Rape, Sexual Assualt in the US and Europe: A Statistical Analysis
In the past two years, several women have come forward to accuse well-known figures in France of sexual assault.
Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, a former prime-time television host, was accused of rape, sexual assault, and harassment by 20 women in May. The alleged attacks have been reported to the police by sixteen of them. The appeals court decided to overrule this decision at the end of June, allowing for a preliminary examination into the charges. Initially, some of the accusations were dismissed since they were beyond the French legal deadline for filing lawsuits.
In response to the accusations, Poivre d’Arvor is suing 16 of the women who have come forward for defamation. He fiercely denies them.
Olivier Duhamel, a political scientist and well-known constitutional expert, resigned from his academic and media positions in 2021 after being accused of raping and sexually assaulting his stepdaughter Camille Kouchner, a former government minister, and her twin brother. In her book La Familia Grande, she detailed the attacks.
Recently, Fiona Ferro, French tennis player, came out for the first time since rape and sexual assault claims against her former coach Pierre Bouteyre became public.
She made her statement on social media. The French tennis player responded to Bouteyre’s charges, stating that the sexual exploitation she experienced as a teenager between 2012 and 2015 was not consensual.
Ferro, who stood firm in her initial claims, said that she was entrusting her country’s court system in the hopes that the proper course of action would be taken. She also thanked everyone who have helped her during the process.
Also Read: 149 woman killed by their partners in France: Development doesn’t guarantee the end of sexism
