The former director of Sciences Po Paris, Mathias Vicherat, and his ex-partner, Anissa Bonnefont, must appear this Friday, November 29 before the Paris criminal court to be tried. They accuse each other of mutual domestic violence.
This Friday, November 29, Mathias Vicherat, former director of Sciences Po Paris, and his ex-partner Anissa Bonnefont appear before the Paris criminal court to be tried for domestic violence of which they accuse each other.
During the hearing on October 24, the prosecution requested a six-month suspended prison sentence for the former director of Sciences Po Paris and his former partner. “It is not today the role of justice to know who is at fault for this marital catastrophe,” declared the public prosecutor Florent Boura, assuring that in this “complicated” case because “the victims are also the guilty ones.
Beyond this prison sentence, the prosecution also requested that the ex-spouses be prohibited from contacting each other for a period of three years. In this case, Mathias Vicherat is accused of two acts of violence while his ex-spouse, Anissa Bonnefont, is accused of “regular violence” against the former director of Sciences Po Paris.
Mathias Vicherat points to “attacks of jealousy” from his ex-partner
According to Me Louise Bouchain, one of Mathias Vicherat's lawyers, he “formally contests the facts with which he is accused”. According to Me Patrick Klugman, “during the year 2023”, his client would have “regularly suffered violence in the context of attacks of jealousy from his partner”.
This “violence” would have generated “a 30-day psychological ITT”, ensuring that Mathias Vicherat “never responded, neither verbally nor physically”.
“We are not used to seeing a beaten man in these cases of domestic violence. And yet, this is the reality of this issue,” he said. Mathias Vicherat today wants “his innocence to be recognized” and “his honor to be restored,” said his lawyers, whose comments were relayed by AFP.
For her part, Anissa Bonnefont also acknowledges, through her lawyers' note, having given her ex-partner “slaps”, but says she herself is the victim of a violent relationship where she was allegedly “put under control” .
“He still dislocated his shoulder once, a finger, but there were also three strangulations and 50 days of ITT because he tore off his wrist,” detailed Me Sébastien Schapira. “We are prohibiting this woman from being a victim, we are trampling on a woman who has already been hit,” also denounced the director's second lawyer, Me Guillaume Barbe. He also deplores “a step backwards” in the treatment of violence against women.
Mathias Vicherat succeeded in November 2021 as head of Sciences Po Paris from Frédéric Mion, forced to resign in February of the same year for having concealed suspicions of incest targeting the political scientist Olivier Duhamel against his daughter-in-law Camille Kouchner.
On March 13, 2024, Mathias Vicherat was forced to leave his position following a blockade put in place by students of Sciences Po Paris demanding his resignation after his referral to the criminal court for accusations of domestic violence.
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