The old sub-prefect from Roanne (Loire) comes from file a complaint pour moral harassment. It aims Catherine Seguinwho was then prefect of the Loire.
Catherine Seguin, who has just been appointed prefect of Isère, was prefect of Oise until the beginning of November.
It is The Parisianin its edition of Sunday November 17 which reports the facts. Me Gilles-Jean Portejoie, a leading Parisian lawyer, declared in the daily: “This complaint aims to restore dignity to a woman who has never been unworthy.”
The information was notably taken up by The Progress of Lyonet South Westregional dailies which cover the areas where Catherine Seguin served in the prefecture.
Sylvaine Astic was sub-prefect of Roanne from April 2021 to July 2022.
Catherine Seguin was prefect of the Loire from August 2020 to February 2023 (just before arriving in Oise).
Ms. Astic believes she was “sidelined for no reason”. She incriminates Catherine Seguin. “We had disagreements for a good part of 2021,” says Sylvaine Astic. I had always had excellent ratings in my previous positions, and suddenly I received a poor evaluation from my superiors. I am summoned at the beginning of 2022 by the deputy director of the prefectural body and senior officials.
Suspended
She learns that she is suspended from her duties.
“I made no mistake. I still don't know what I'm being accused of. When I ask for explanations, no one answers me. I'm being sidelined for no real reason. The only position I was offered is at the same level as the one I held twelve years ago!”
“This case is also proof that moral harassment and humiliation do not escape any environment, not even that of senior administration,” adds Me Portejoie.
In fact, it is The Dauphiné Libéré who first publishes the information (a little more than two hours ahead of The Parisian).
The Grenoble newspaper indicates that Ms. Astic found herself deprived of an office, of access to the Ministry of the Interior on which she depends, of a professional computer and telephone, forced to communicate with her administration with her personal means. And faced, she judges, with silence or dilatory responses from her human resources department.
Resilience
According to her Linkedin page, Sylvaine Astic indicates that after leaving the sub-prefecture of Roanne, she was “in charge of the citizen resilience mission”.
If resilience is the ability to bounce back after a failure, we can say that the lesson has been learned since the sub-prefect chose to take legal action to obtain compensation for the humiliations she suffered under the authority of Catherine Seguin.
At the Beauvais prefecture, this story does not surprise those who worked with Catherine Seguin. They reported, in careful and low-key terms, the difficulties of working with the ex-prefect, his authoritarian and brittle character.
The irony of this story is that it acquired national notoriety through Ms. Seguin's favorite newspaper. It is The Parisian who received the information first, it was Le Parisien who received, in priority, tens of thousands of euros of legal announcements to the great happiness of his boss, a certain Bernard Arnault, the fifth richest person in the world, according to the Bloomberg ranking of 2024.
We were unable to contact Ms. Seguin or Ms. Astic to obtain their observations.
