They were friends and colleagues. Since one sent an incendiary email denouncing an alleged plagiarism, they no longer speak to each other. In December, the two men met in the Nantes criminal court to settle a dispute over their research work on the mustache. The story narrated by West France is very serious and reminds us that under Napoleon III, the wearing of mustaches and beards was prohibited for lawyers. A subject more than 150 years old which the dean of the Nantes law school had taken up, before discovering that a former classmate was also studying it.
The dean had accused his colleague of plagiarism and sent an email deemed defamatory to two members of the Nantes university to complain about it. Problem: these two people were members of a jury to rule on appointments and assignments of positions within the law school. Post to which the person accused of plagiarism had applied, of course. And did not have. For these facts, the dean of the college was condemned to the symbolic penalty 20 euro fine and a symbolic euro in damages.