France's current ambassador to the Ivory Coast is being investigated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris over allegations of sexual harassment, Mediapart has been told. Gilles Huberson has been accused of sexist and sexual violence by at least five women, who have given statements to an official at the ministry in Paris as part of the internal probe.
The allegations concern events in several countries, including Mali, where Mr Huberson was ambassador from 2013 to 2016, and the Ivory Coast where he was appointed in 2017. The claims range from comments judged to be degrading towards women to unwanted gestures of a sexual connotation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs declined to comment to Mediapart about the case. But it did say that “verifications are still ongoing”. The ministry also refused to confirm officially that the ambassador had been recalled to Paris, as has been reported in several media including most notably Africa Intelligence. Such a recall would be unusual given that the Ivory Coast faces potentially tense elections in just a few weeks, on October 31st. Despite being sent several emails, Gilles Huberson himself did not respond to Mediapart's request for a comment.
'Louisa' – her name has been changed – well remembers her first encounter with Gilles Huberson. A contract worker at France's Ministry of Foreign Affairs for ten years, she was in the Middle East when she learnt that she was being posted to Mali. She said that the ambassador's reputation preceded him. “A gendarme with whom I worked, who had known Gilles Huberson during one of his postings on the African continent, said to me: 'Watch out, he's a horny devil!'. I didn't really give it much attention at the time,” she stated in her written evidence sent to the ministry in Paris, which Mediapart has seen.
Louisa met the senior diplomat soon after her arrival in Mali. She said that at around 7pm one day Mr Huberson invited her into his office, removed his tie, sat on his sofa, had a glass of whisky and lit a cigar. “He asked me what the objective was of my posting,” she said. “I told him that I worked on gender issues and human rights in particular, to which he replied 'Ah! That's pointless. What counts is economic influence'.”
Louisa said that the ambassador had little interest in her mission but had formed a distinct opinion about her. “At a reception a member of the French community spoke to him about me, telling [the ambassador] 'The new woman seems good'. He replied: 'Not thin enough for me.' This person reported these comments to me a few days later,” she said.
Several people to whom Mediapart spoke – men and women – spoke of a “locker room atmosphere” in the embassy run by Gilles Huberson. He is described as an authoritarian man, a lover of whisky and cigars, who does not hold back from making unsophisticated jokes. The French community in Mali is full of stories about the ambassador's attitude.
“Young woman” or “Miss”, he would say repeatedly to married women. “Did you have your parents' permission?” he asked during an embassy meeting after a late night working session, and he also made other references to age and motherhood. When drawing up a table plan for an important meeting one of the ambassador's male colleagues reportedly told a female employee: “Your place is under the table!” This was said in front of the ambassador, who laughed with him. This “little bit of humour” unsettled several of those present. Mediapart spoke to people close to the women who were there on this occasion; one of the women had felt “treated like a child” while the other had felt “humiliated”.
The ministry's own code of conduct forbids “bullying a female colleague and letting other colleagues bully that official”. They are also forbidden from “using sexist terms” and “making humiliating or unpleasant comments, undermining women's feelings of competence through offensive remarks or practices”.
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Mr Huberson is also accused of going further on several occasions.
According to several sources the ambassador reportedly “threw” himself on a women in his office in an attempt to kiss her. When contacted the woman in question did not want to comment.
At the ambassador's formal residence in Mali an international expert described how Gilles Huberson put his hand on her thigh during a professional meeting. According to a ministry document, seen by Mediapart, the woman in question reacted and is said to have “hit him on the hand” and called him a “disgusting slob” before bringing the meeting to an end. She said this took place in 2013.
It was another six years before one of her colleagues, a female diplomat, referred the issue to the ministry's compliance officer at the end of 2019. It was this compliance officer, Jean-François Blarel, who carried out the first interviews in this case.
According to a document seen by Mediapart, in May 2020 Blarel informed the witnesses that the legal affairs department had “concluded that the facts are of a serous nature and have approved the start of an administrative investigation”. The compliance officer informed them that the matter would be referred to the ministry's “secretary general” and the “minister's office” in order to set up a general investigation. According to diplomatic sources this took place in July 2020, and led to the gathering of new witness statements, including from men who had witnessed events.
Since then, however, the ministry has said nothing, insisting that internal procedures are confidential. The ministry's spokesperson Agnès von der Mühll, who is also the senior civil servant in charge of equality at the department, simply told Mediapart that “verifications are ongoing” while insisting that internal procedures were taken “seriously”.
Yet inside the ministry there is a tense atmosphere. The people who came forward to give evidence to the compliance officer and the administrative investigation now fear for their careers. Many people did not dare to respond for fear of being punished. And all the women that Mediapart contacted refused to answer questions, out of fear of potential reprisals from their managers.
One official in a posting abroad, who had knowledge of some of the events detailed earlier, explained when contacted by Mediapart that she was “afraid” for her job if she responded to our questions.
Gilles Huberson is a significant figure in the ministry. He trained at the Saint-Cyr military academy in Brittany in western France, became a unit commander in the gendarmes, and joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in 1996, becoming a specialist in security issues. In the private sector he worked from 2007 to 2009 as a director of general affairs at the luxury goods group LVMH. In 2009 he returned to the ministry as an advisor and became close to Jean-Yves Le Drian – then defence minister, now foreign affairs minister - at the time of the French military intervention in Mali in 2013.
In February 2013, just weeks after the military operation began, he became head of the inter-ministerial group for Mali and the wider Sahel region of Africa. Just a few weeks later he was made France's ambassador in the Mali capital Bamako. In 2016 he became French ambassador to Mauritius but a few months after Le Drian became foreign minster in 2017 he was appointed as ambassador to Ivory Coast, one of the most prestigious French diplomatic postings in Africa.
'Things get out'
Several people to whom Mediapart spoke, and who are aware of the case, are curious about the way that the ministry is handling the accusations against Gilles Huberson. Has he received a degree of protection from the minister, Jean-Yves Le Drian? The ministry points out that the fact there is an investigation “shows that he is not protected”. And it said that while the two men “knew each other in Mali” that “does not mean that [Mr Huberson] is close to him or protected”.
Did the diplomatic service know about Gilles Huberson's actions before he was appointed as ambassador to Ivory Coast and before the reports that were made to the compliance officer in 2019? One former diplomat contacted by Mediapart said that the accusations relating to Mali were “known to many people” at the ministry, before Mr Huberson was appointed ambassador to Mauritius.
A source inside the ministry in Paris told Mediapart they had known about these facts from 2019. A document seen by Mediapart also shows that a senior official approached the department's senior management in 2014 to get Mr Huberson's alleged actions stopped.
One of the women who gave a statement against Gilles Huberson in the internal investigation told a female friend that during a spell in Paris she had confided her difficulties to the human resources department at the ministry. But nothing came of it. In a private exchange with her friend, which Mediapart has see, the diplomat said that she was “fed up with machos”.
Did the foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian himself have any knowledge of the accusations against Gilles Huberson? “I don't know to what extent it was known to the minister, it's known now … with this kind of procedure, nowadays things get out and get talked about,” said a spokesperson for the ministry.
Were Mr Huberson's alleged actions also subject to a referral under article 40 paragraph 2 of the criminal procedure code, which places an obligation on all competent bodies, public officials and civil servants to report crimes or offences of which they have knowledge in the exercise of their duties … in other words, was the issue reported to state prosecutors? The ministry said it did not want to comment on “individual cases”.
The ministry's compliance officer does not consider that all issues referrals to him need to be reported to a state prosecutor under article 40. In fact, Mediapart understands that just one case has been reported in this way by the ministry, and that was in 2017.
“Referrals under article 40 are almost never made, the [ministry] prefers to sort it out internally,” explained Valérie Jacq-Duclos, ex-secretary general of the CGT-MAE, one of the trade unions representing Ministry of Foreign Affairs staff. Having observed other cases of mental and sexual harassment, she said that the ministry is still very cautious in its handling of such issues. She said that “protective measures are used against the presumed victims: often they are moved or they are brought back to Paris, which they see as a punishment as it impacts their financial and even their family situation”.
Sexism inside the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has long been a taboo subject. In February 2018 the Femmes et Diplomatie association produced a list of sexist comments women had endured in the service. “Young lady”, “always so elegant”, “that haircut suits you so well, you should have your hair cut like that more often”, “three young children? And a widow? You're a real loser! I can never reply on you”, “I'll keep you but don't have kids”, “I've nothing against women, I'm married” … the list, seen by Mediapart, is long and enlightening.
Soon afterwards, on March 6th 2018, the foreign minister Jean-Yves Le Drian announced the creation of a unit devoted to hearing complaints about sexist and sexual abuse, called 'Zero Tolerance'. It was through this unit that Gilles Huberson's presumed victims first spoke out.
According to figures sent to Mediapart by the ministry, in two-and-a-half years there have been “31 reports” to the compliance officer. In July 2019 out of the 17 reports that had then been made, five concerned sexist behaviour and eight involved sexual assaults, according to another trade union with members at ministry, the CFDT-MAE.
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter