his extraordinary friendship with the inventor of the “morning after pill” – L’Express

Daughter of a woman born in India and a Jamaican father; a native of California herself where she spent most of her life, it is hardly surprising that Kamala Harris – an American from the West Coast for whom New York is already an exotic destination – knows France little. However, she has one friend there, only one, who is not Emmanuel Macron, even if she appreciates the French president whom she has met several times. This close friend is neither a politician nor a diplomat but a scientist. It is Etienne-Emile Baulieu, the inventor of the contraceptive RU 486, better known to us as the “morning after pill”. But what mysterious link unites the 60-year-old candidate and the 97-year-old professor – still in good shape?

To understand this, we have to go back to the fall of 2021. Then an unprecedented diplomatic crisis occurs between Paris and Washington. The reason: Australia abruptly canceled an order for French submarines to replace them with American submersibles. Not content with having won this market, the United States announced – additional vexation – the creation of a strategic alliance in the Pacific region with the United Kingdom and Australia, but without France which nevertheless has territories there. (New Caledonia, Polynesia, Wallis and Futuna). Furious, Macron recalled his ambassador stationed in Washington to Paris. To calm things down, Joe Biden, in office for less than a year, sent Kamala Harris to Paris. Mission: patching up.

The program of his four-day visit includes a visit to the American cemetery of Mont-Valérien (in Suresnes), a dinner at the Elysée, his participation in the November 11 ceremonies and a speech at the Forum for Peace. However, what is close to his heart is meeting Professor Etienne-Emile Baulieu. She personally had this interview added to the program. For what ? Quite simply because Harris’ mother, Shyamala Gopalan, a chemist and biologist specializing in breast cancer, worked in the laboratory – and under the orders – of Professor Baulieu, at Kremlin-Bicêtre in the 1980s. he also co-authored two articles with him in scientific journals. The Indian scientist died in 2009 at age 70.

“They don’t have the same surname”

On the professor’s side, the surprise is total: “I had never made the connection between the mother and the daughter who do not have the same surname,” he says in his apartment with its floor strewn with piles of books. “When the United States embassy called us to tell us that the vice-president wanted to meet Etienne, we were shocked,” says his wife Simone Harari, a renowned television producer, with a smile.

On November 9, 2021, Air Force Two landed at Orly. Kamala Harris was immediately taken, in the company of her husband Doug Emhoff, to the Pasteur Institute in Paris where, in a room without pomp, the Baulieu couple awaited them. “We were asked for Covid tests the same morning; fortunately, they were negative!”, welcomes the mischievous Baulieu. His wife relates: “She arrived, beaming, with a big smile and arms wide open, then walked towards Etienne and declared: ‘My mother was professionally in love with you!’ Obviously, this meeting was important to her; it connected her to her mother.” And to his own convictions on abortion, of which Professor Baulieu is one of the great defenders. For an hour, the professor and the vice-president exchange anecdotes. “She reminded me that, the day before her mother left, after three years in France, I had invited her to the Paris opera. Not keen on her dress style, the scientist had bought an evening dress on purpose for the occasion.” And had told it many times to his daughter.

In the mind of the latter, the Frenchman is “The legendary professor Baulieu”. It was in these terms that Harris mentioned his name during a speech at the State Department in 2022. When the New York Times dedicated a long article to the French scientist in 2023, the vice-president telephoned him to congratulate him. Since this meeting three years ago, the Baulieu couple have closely followed the career of their new friend. After being enthusiastic about his start to the campaign with fanfare, Etienne-Emile and Simone are following with concern Donald Trump’s rise in the polls. They sincerely hope that Kamala Harris will be elected on November 5. Then, in turn, she will become a legend.