Since January 2021 France has been shaken by a huge sexual abuse scandal. The scandal was triggered by the publication of the book La familia grande by lawyer Camille Kouchner. She is the daughter of the co-founder of Médecins Sans Frontières and former foreign minister Bernard Kouchner.

In the book, Kouchner describes the sexual abuse of her twin brother by stepfather Olivier Duhamel 30 years ago. Duhamel is one of the most powerful men in France. He embodies the so-called caviar left (gauche caviar) which revolted on the streets in May 1968, but reached for power, money and influence later. Duhamel was head of the influential Sciences Po Foundation and president of the exclusive and secret Parisian club Le Siècle. Furthermore he had been Member of the European Parliament for the Socialist Party, professor for Public Law at the Sorbonne University and advisor to the French president Emmanuel Macron.

Living the Sexual revolution

According to Kouchners book, Duhamel’s home seemed to be the perfect example of the sexual revolution: Even the adults walked around naked. The Guests, including many figures of the leftist intelligentsia, could look at pictures of the developing breasts of Duhamel’s daughters on the walls. The mother declared herself concerned that 12-year-old Camille had not yet been “deflowered”. This sexualized atmosphere could have facilitated sexual abuse of minors.

Since Kouchner published her book, the hashtag #MeTooInceste has been trending on Twitter. Thousands of victims of incest have gone public. The tragic tales reignited a discussion that was already sweeping the country a year ago because of the pedophilia case of famous writer Gabriel Matzneff. For decades, Matzneff blatantly described his sexual adventures with underage girls and boys in his widely praised books such as Les moins de seize ans. In early 2020, the book Le consentement by Vanessa Springora, one of his victims, put him on the spot, too. The extent of now known incestuous or pedophilic cases is enormously. Apparently big parts of the French establishment had known about Duhamel’s deeds for years. But they kept silence and enjoyed his company.

French intellectuals approved of pedophilia

How was it possible that Duhamel had been so famous and popular? Pedophilia and incest occur in all social classes. However, in France the trivialization of pedophilia is quite common in elite circles. The philosopher Luc Ferry explains, large parts of the 1968 movement approved of pedophilia publicly : “Since the child is not the private property of the parents, every adult has the right or even the duty, they pleaded, to take it away from the family to awaken this sexuality that is covered up by the bourgeoisie.”

In France in the 1960s the traditional social order was fought with the motto “interdit d’interdire”. The protagonists of May 1968 claimed to exchange the alleged oppressive morality of the bourgeoisie with a boundless sexual freedom. Renowned thinkers said every child would have a right to sexuality, even with adults. In 1977 80 leading French intellectuals signed a petition for the removal of the age of consent. Among them were Michel Foucault, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, André Glucksmann and Gabriel Matzneff. Newspapers, television programs and organizations such as the Front homosexuel d’action révolutionnaire offered pedophilia activists a public platform for years. They worked towards the acceptance of pedophilia. But they ignored the lifelong suffering of children and adolescents completely.

Public debate gone wrong

However, a different aspect of the topic dominates the current public debate in France: The new testimonies of victims and the horrific statistics focus on incest. In a November 2020 representative study with 1,000 participants, 10 percent of respondents said they had been victims of sexual abuse in their own family. Therefore the public mainly discusses about the presumed risks of children in their family. For example, some reports and analyses in the French press blame “patriarchal” social structures for mass abuse.

A study from 2015, in which more than 27,000 French people participated, shows a somewhat different picture. At that time, 8.3 percent of women and 1.9 percent of men said they had been abused as minors. In about half of the cases (4.6 respectively 0.7 percent), the assault took place in the closest environment: The victim knew the perpetrator well and trusted him. Of these cases, the study classifies 2.5 percent of women and 0.3 percent of men as incest. However, it does not record sexual assaults by stepfathers and stepmothers separately. Although it is statistically proven that stepfathers abuse children much more often than biological fathers.

Children need stable families

Every single case of incest is one case too many. The significant difference between the two studies calls for caution in evaluating the problem: One cannot put all families immediately under general suspicion of sexual abuse. Several studies worldwide have shown that intact and stable families are the best protection for children. A fact often forgotten in political and social discussions. Therefore strong families can be the solution to prevent sexual abuse and incest in the future.

The Duhamel case proves this point. Because strictly speaking, it is not about incest, since the perpetrator was the victim’s stepfather. As the French sexologist Thérèse Hadot points out, La familia grande shows that the problem is not patriarchal family structures, but the lack of a strong father figure: “The cruel absence of the father, a man who gives security, who protects and affirms the law – what is allowed and what is forbidden. One who enables mother and children to (…) get out of the mess. (…) Where is such a man? Him we need more than ever.”