Sciences Po is trying to turn the page on the Olivier Duhamel affair. The two governing bodies of the Institute of Political Studies in Paris have appointed Mathias Vicherat, 43, as director of the institution, announced the IEP, Wednesday, November 10.
The board of directors of the National Foundation for Political Science (FNSP), which oversees Sciences Po, elected the former secretary general of Danone by 19 votes out of 23 among the three candidates in the running. On Tuesday, the board of the Institute, the institution’s internal governance body, had also largely chosen this enarque from the same promotion as Emmanuel Macron.
This former chief of staff of Bertrand Delanoë and Anne Hidalgo at the mayor of Paris, who then became deputy general manager of the SNCF, will succeed Frédéric Mion. The latter was forced to resign last February for having concealed suspicions of incest targeting political scientist Olivier Duhamel, then president of the FNSP.
Mathias Vicherat was the only one of the three finalist candidates to present a non-university profile. There remained, in the final phase, only three applications against 23 at the start. Christine Musselin, 63, sociologist and teacher at Sciences Po, and Olivier Faron, 61, historian and general administrator of the National Conservatory of Arts and Crafts were not selected. They obtained three votes and one vote respectively in the FNSP vote.
The appointment of the director “will be the subject of a decree of the President of the Republic and a decree of the Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation” soon, specifies Sciences Po.