Almost a year after the resignation of Olivier Duhamel and then Frédéric Mion, Mathias Vicherat, 43, was appointed director of Sciences Po Paris by the two governing bodies of the institution, announced the IEP on Wednesday.
The board of directors of the National Foundation of Political Sciences (FNSP), which oversees Sciences Po, appointed Mathias Vicherat on Wednesday among the three candidates in the running, by 19 votes out of 23, we learned from the school . Tuesday, the board of the Institute, the institution’s internal governance body, also chose this enarque from the same promotion as Emmanuel Macron.
A non-university profile
He will succeed Frédéric Mion, 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 (Cnam) were not selected. They obtained 3 votes and 1 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, writes Sciences Po in a press release.
Inclusion and equal opportunities
Mathias Vicherat’s project for Sciences Po? “Model of democratization”, since the establishment of the ZEP conventions under Richard Descoings, the school must “amplify the inclusion and the promotion of equal opportunities”, he wrote in his application for 10 pages, available on the school website.
The abandonment of the competition, which gave way to a selection on file is “a decision that must be confirmed because the social divide is less strong at the time of the oral admission”, he continues. He also insists on the development of research, the need to find budgetary resources, the internationalization of the school, but also the fight against gender-based and sexual violence.
Sciences Po was shaken last year by the charges of incest, dismissed because of prescription, brought against Olivier Duhamel. This affair caused the resignations of Olivier Duhamel then of the director of Sciences Po Frédéric Mion, one of his relatives. It has also fueled the #sciencesporcs movement launched by students claiming to be victims or witnesses of gender-based behavior and violence in several institutes of political studies in France.