Didier Raoult will retire at the end of August – Franceinfo

End of career for Didier Raoult? The controversial scientist will no longer be a university professor-hospital practitioner within Aix-Marseille University and Marseille University Hospitals (AP-HM) from August 31, 2021, reveals The world (article reserved for subscribers), Wednesday August 18. In question: the 69-year-old man has reached the age of compulsory cessation of activity.

The maintenance of Didier Raoult at the direction of the Mediterranean Infection Hospital-University Institute (IHU) of Marseille, managed by a private foundation, does not nevertheless meet the same age criteria as his status as professor, underlines the daily. The interested party has moreover sends the management of the AP-HM a request for combined employment and retirement to continue to lead the institute he founded in 2011, assures the World Jean-Luc Jouve, president of the medical establishment commission of the AP-HM.

But this request is not unanimous among the founding members of the IHU, while the relationship between the microbiologist and a large part of the medical and scientific community in Marseille has deteriorated since the Covid-19 epidemic and controversial positions taken by Didier Raoult. “He could stay on, but it is unreasonable for the IHU to be headed by someone who is no longer a hospital practitioner or an academic”, valued François Crémieux, general manager of the AP-HM.

In September, the latter and the president of Aix-Marseille University, Eric Berton, representing two of the founding members of the IHU, will therefore propose to the board of directors of the foundation that steers the institute and to its president, Yolande Obadia , to launch a call for tenders to find a successor to the scientist, notes The world. But to succeed, they will have to convince the representatives of the other founding members still present, including those close to Didier Raoult.

Solicited by The world, the interested party did not wish to comment on this information. The management of the IHU announces daily that it will communicate on this subject “in September”.