Pr Didier Raoult did not hide from having two favorites for his succession: Pr Philippe Parola or Pr Pierre-Edouard Fournier. This Wednesday, the board of directors of the IHU – Méditerranée Infection should, barring a last-minute surprise, ratify the appointment of Pierre-Edouard Fournier to succeed the very controversial microbiologist. Victory all the way for Professor Raoult, still able to pull the strings despite the multiple challenges to which he is the subject? In any case, this choice leaves a bitter taste to many. “All that for this !” headlined the CGT FERC Sup union of Aix-Marseille University in a recent press release, referring to a “succession masquerade”.
The institutions overseeing the IHU had succeeded in modifying the selection process with the aim of ensuring a “radical change” at the head of this institute. Initially, in fact, the president of the board of directors of the IHU, Yolande Obadia, a close friend of Didier Raoult, wanted the scientific council of the Institute to audition the candidates to propose a name to him. Scientific Council which it is common knowledge that it had been largely composed by Didier Raoult himself. But, during one of the previous meetings of the Board of Directors, the founding members of the IHU obtained that the name of the future candidate be proposed instead by an independent “Search Committee”, chaired by Louis Schweitzer, the former president of Renault and former general commissioner for investment. The rest of the process, on the other hand, has not been modified: it is still Yolande Obadia who retains, alone, the prerogative to appoint the new director of the IHU.
The job description published by the search committee was also intended to be very ambitious – the ideal candidate had to have both a very good scientific and medical profile, excellent managerial qualities, the ability to federate the teams of the IHU and “an unblemished reputation in interpersonal relations” (sic). Two very good international candidates were discarded because the profiles of the scientists, rather focused on epidemiology, seemed too far removed from the specificities of the IHU (microbiology and healthcare). Three French people also presented themselves: a parasitologist head of service at the Public Assistance – Hospitals of Paris and former of the IHU, Pr Renaud Piarroux, and two internal candidates, that of Philippe Parola and Pierre-Edouard Fournier. That of Philippe Parola was rejected because the man, very close to Didier Raoult, had also given his support in 2017 to Eric Ghigo, this researcher then accused of moral and sexual harassment, and recently sentenced by the Marseille criminal court.
The shadow of Didier Raoult on the search committee
In the last round, only Pr Piarroux and Pr Fournier remained in the running. The first “ticked all the boxes” according to a member of the board of directors, but he also had the disadvantage of having left the IHU in conflict not only with Didier Raoult but also with his closest collaborators who, themselves, remain currently still in place. Louis Schweitzer therefore fully assumes the choice of Pierre-Edouard Fournier, as he explained in a recent interview granted to L’Express: “it appeared to us that it was necessary to change the direction profoundly and radically its management. Mr. Fournier has shown that he has the capacity and the will to do so”.
According to our information, Professor Fournier has in any case received strong support from those close to Didier Raoult within the IHU. Indeed, Professor Philippe Brouqui, head of the IHU pole, sent an unequivocal letter of support to Yolande Obadia and Louis Schweitzer, shortly before the Research Committee made its decision: “With my colleagues , we have serious doubts as to the added value of their appointment at the head of the IHU”, he indicates about the candidates external to the structure, in this letter that L’Express was able to consult. “To be respected by his peers, he (the future director, NDRL) must have a title test worthy of the researchers and doctors he will be called upon to coordinate in good intelligence (…). Our investment to all in the IHU was made with one goal and one goal only, to continue the work of Didier Raoult. We think that some people have not yet realized how united we are in this goal”, he writes again.
Did the search committee fear that an external application would lead to a blockage of the structure? Or did he not manage to get along with Yolande Obadia, the only one who can name the future director? Didier Raoult retain influence on the research committee, seven out of twelve members of which come from the scientific council of the IHU? Still, the result is there: it is an internal application, desired by the famous microbiologist, which should be retained. “Indeed, we find ourselves unable to find someone from the outside, an indisputable scientist, a good manager, available to come and settle in Marseille, an expert in the scientific field of the IHU and with a good reputation. However, I do not believe that it is quite the same to have an internal candidate appointed without an international appeal, without an independent committee, without Louis Schweitzer, without renewal of the Board of Directors, or to be appointed under these conditions”, hopes a good connoisseur of the file.
Philippe Douste-Blazy and Yolande Obadia soon landed?
Because Pierre-Edouard Fournier will not have a blank check, and the actors who wish to overhaul the functioning of this Institute have not said their last word. Two members of the board of directors have already been replaced – Didier Raoult himself and Professor Jacques Marescaux, whose terms expired at the end of May. The founding members of the IHU have the power to appoint the members of the board of directors. If, in fact, these were chosen so far by Professor Raoult, this was not the case this time: Louis Schweitzer and Emmanuelle Prada-Bordenave, member of the Council of State and former director of the Biomedicine Agency were appointed at the request of the founding members. According to our information, the days of Philippe Douste-Blazy within the Board of Directors are also numbered. As recalled by the report of the General Inspectorate of Social Affairs revealed by Provence, the former minister and great defender of hydroxychloroquine, has not attended a single meeting of this body for five years. An argument which had been used by Didier Raoult to disembark from the Board of Directors Professor Delfraissy, with whom he was in open war, at the time of the latter’s appointment as head of the Covid-19 scientific council.
And that’s not all. Still according to our information, the immediate departure of Yolande Obadia from the chairmanship of the Board of Directors should also be proposed at Wednesday’s meeting. “This is the last of the conditions to allow a return to normal operation of the IHU, explains someone close to the file. The IGAS-IGEFR report makes it illegitimate for this function. All the malfunctions are at least as many of its responsibility than that of the director whom she had appointed and whom she had always supported”. Tomorrow’s meeting therefore promises to be fraught with challenges.
But even if this approach does not succeed, the founding members have a powerful lever to ensure that the operation of the IHU evolves: the renewal of the agreements that bind them with the Institute. Thus, the Public Assistance – Hospitals of Marseille has already announced that this agreement, hitherto renewed from year to year by tacit agreement, should this time be renegotiated by the end of 2022. One way, for its management , to push for deviant behavior to cease. Because if this agreement were not renewed, all the research and care activities of the IHU would stop, and the Institut Méditerranée – Infection would become an empty shell. The battle for the standardization of this research tool, the most expensive in France, has only just begun.