France: an investigation opened for rape and sexual assault at the Polytechnic school

Published on: 04/14/2022 – 21:15 A preliminary investigation was opened on Thursday by the Évry public prosecutor’s office, following the publication of the results of an internal questionnaire from the Ecole Polytechnique. It revealed that one student in four had been the victim of sexual assault since the start of her schooling. In addition, 11 people declared themselves victims of an attempted rape or rape during their years of study. The school of the French elite at the heart of a scandal: a preliminary investigation has been opened for rape and sexual assault after an internal Polytechnique questionnaire, according to which one in four students has been the victim of sexual assault there since the start of his schooling, said Thursday, April 14 the prosecution of Évry to AFP, confirming information from France Inter. While eleven students in total say they have been victims of rape or attempted rape, this opening of an investigation comes seven months after that relating to CentraleSupélec, where an internal study had also reported a hundred acts of sexual harassment, sexual assault or rape during the academic year. In both cases, the management of the establishments had sent a report to the Évry public prosecutor’s office, these schools being located on the Saclay plateau, in Essonne, south of Paris. According to the public prosecutor’s office , Polytechnique’s report was received at the end of March and led to the opening of this investigation on Wednesday, entrusted to the research brigade of the Palaiseau gendarmerie. The questionnaire, conducted from January 19 to February 6 in consultation with the students, “follows the actions committed at CentraleSupélec”, justified the management of Polytechnique. “We decided to react immediately by launching an investigation ourselves to find out what was going on at the Polytechnic school,” François Bouchet, the director general of the prestigious engineering school, told AFP on Tuesday. “We are in shock” At Polytechnique, the questionnaire was completed by around 2,100 young people, out of the 3,300 who joined X between 2018 and 2021, “i.e. more than 60% of responses, a very high participation”, noted the director general. “We suspected that there would be cases of sexist and sexual violence that would go up, harassment, exhibitionism, unwanted contact, because we also have a listening cell which had been seized of certain cases”, underlined François Bouchet. According to the survey, 23% of students – overwhelmingly women – say they have suffered sexual assault during their schooling: we rubbed against them, we touched their breasts, their buttocks, they were kissed against their will. Eleven people declared themselves victims of an attempted rape or a rape during their years at Polytechnique. “We are in shock, I did not think that this questionnaire was going to lead to an inventory of attempted rapes or rapes”, added François Bouchet “These revealed facts of great gravity are unacceptable. We must mobilize to free up speech and further improve our action plan launched in 2017″, he said. “Workshops on sexist and sexual violence will be made compulsory for all students from next June. “With AFP