The verdict of the Ecole polytechnique commission responsible for investigating Idriss Aberkane’s thesis has fallen: yes, he did “plagiarize his thesis”. A successful essayist and regular guest of the media, the self-proclaimed “hyperdoctor”, holder of three doctorates and who portrays himself as a prodigy of mathematics, neuroscience, biology, geopolitics, computer science, and now photography, fell from its pedestal, as its scientific pretensions and its CV were questioned. Having become a figure in the conspiratorial sphere, her words are becoming more and more radical and threatening.
It was Benoît Deveaud, director of research and of the ethics committee of the Ecole polytechnique from 2017 to 2023, who decided to speak. In an interview with L’Express, he reveals the conclusions of the commission responsible for investigating the thesis of Idriss Aberkane, which he chaired. “The plagiarism was found in June 2022. We have unanimously decided […] to propose the cancellation of his thesis and his doctorate”, he testifies. Benoît Deveaud, who recently retired, assures him: an amicable solution had been envisaged at first. But the physicist adds that, in the face of Idriss Aberkane’s responses, “systematically aggressive and insulting to [son] against and towards the president of the Ecole polytechnique, whom he threatened to take to court, [et surtout face à] his refusal to answer on the merits of the case, that is to say plagiarism”, the ethics committee opted for a severe sanction.
In a lawyer’s letter addressed to L’Express, Idriss Aberkane continues to challenge the plagiarism and the legitimacy of the Polytechnique ethics commission. He thus asserts that chapter XIII of his thesis is a “reproduction of technical documentation whose authors and sources are fully cited” and that this reproduction was justified by the subject of his thesis. Nevertheless, as an investigation by L’Express has shown, the thesis does not indicate that it is a copy-paste, but speaks of a “teamwork“. However, the author of the documentation in question, Marshall Greenblatt, confirmed to us “not to know Mr. Aberkane [et n’avoir] never worked with him” or be aware of any participation in his work. As for the legitimacy of the commission disputed by Idriss Aberkane, the Ecole polytechnique specifically ensured, as Benoît Deveaud explained to L’ Express, to “reshape his texts [afin qu’elle puisse se réunir] in an official and indisputable manner”.
Another member of the ethics committee, who wished to remain anonymous, said: “What is serious is that Mr. Aberkane has not been able to face the criticism and adopt a ethical approach. It is not possible to validate the scientific work of a person who refuses to recognize what is legitimate and what is fault. Otherwise, we enter a form of mental confusion where ‘everything would be worth’.” The commission therefore considered that the thesis and the doctorate should be cancelled. The decision was sent to both the Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Paris-Saclay almost a year ago. However, the sanction has not yet been applied.
Paris-Saclay University, “not legally competent”
In question, a thorny legal imbroglio. Officially, Idriss Aberkane prepared his thesis at Polytechnique, but obtained it at the University of Paris-Saclay. He supported it on February 3, 2016, just one month after the merger of the Polytechnique doctoral school and the University of Paris-Saclay. However, in 2016, the Ecole Polytechnique did not yet have a legal structure to sanction the ethical misconduct of its doctoral students. If it holds such an organization today, its decisions are not retroactive. Thus, the management of Polytechnique would like to sanction him, but it considers that it does not have the legal capacity. It therefore sent the file back to the University of Paris-Saclay, which already had at the time of the defense of the thesis the organization necessary for the application of such a sanction.
But, according to Benoît Deveaud, the lawyers at the University of Paris-Saclay “are in difficulty in the face of Mr. Aberkane’s strategy of intimidation and certainly fear a bitter legal battle without being equipped for such trials, which can be understood. “. Asked by L’Express, Estelle Iacona, president of Paris-Saclay, did not wish to speak. His communication service, he kicks in touch. “Paris-Saclay University is not ‘legally competent’ to take up the case, nor therefore to express itself on this subject”, we are told. A source familiar with the matter confirms the words of Benoît Deveaud: “There was a tool problem when the Paris-Saclay University was set up and the Polytechnique doctoral school came to fit into the structure. The statutes were not clear at that time and, when the problem arose, everyone passed the buck, Polytechnique claiming not to be able to apply the sanction, unlike Paris-Saclay. But the university argues that Mr. Aberkane was originally enrolled at Polytechnique. Another source indicates that neither the Ecole Polytechnique nor the University of Paris-Saclay can speak on the merits, under penalty of seeing the procedure canceled by the lawyers.
The academic system faced with a lack of resources
While waiting for the situation to be resolved, one question remains unanswered: how was Idriss Aberkane’s thesis able to be validated in the first place? This seems all the more surprising since the director of the thesis, Pierre-Jean Benghozi, doctor in organizational sciences, is a figure in… the fight against academic plagiarism. “During his studies, Mr. Aberkane was rather sympathetic. Nothing aroused, at the time, particular alerts. So, even if I had followed his excesses since his thesis, when I was informed of the suspicions of plagiarism , I said to myself: ‘It’s not possible!’ Then I saw the plagiarism and read his extremely vindictive and violent emails, which was worse than the plagiarism itself, and I fell out of my chair,” says Pierre-Jean Benghozi. Affected, the latter withdrew from the ethics commission. “I made this decision because I did not want to be judge and party or weaken the procedure or influence the decisions and by personal ethics”, he explains.
If he therefore refuses to comment on the final decision, he agrees to reconsider his role as thesis director of Mr. Aberkane. “At the time, Paul Bourgine left the Ecole polytechnique and asked me to take his place as thesis director [NDLR : Paul Bourgine était aussi membre du jury des deux autres thèses d’Idriss Aberkane]. I agreed to supervise the part concerning business management models, but, since I was not proficient in computer science and cognitive science, I asked that other colleagues can certify that everything was in order , he recalls. On the management part, no point has raised any difficulty or particular fear.” Plagiarism has, in fact, been detected in chapter XIII, 47 pages long, which presents an almost complete copy-paste lines of software code streamed for free on the internet in 2015, as L’Express revealed in 2022. It’s especially this part that Idriss Aberkane placed under “industrial embargo for five years”, in order to protect “technologies far too serious to be published immediately”, was he justified in 2021. “At the time, the embargo did not shock me, because we often have theses which relate to industrial or entrepreneurial projects, but part of his thesis concerned Chréage, a search engine project in 3D [NDLR : projet qui n’a jamais vu le jour, comme révélé par L’Express]“, recalls Pierre-Jean Benghozi.
The fact remains that the plagiarism of 47 pages has not been detected. Error or negligence of the other members of the jury? “At the time, anti-plagiarism software was not as widespread and not yet used spontaneously, and my colleagues in IT perhaps did not think that plagiarism could affect their discipline”, suggests Pierre-Jean Benghozi. Benoît Deveaud recalls that “more than 250 theses are presented each year at the Institut Polytechnique de Paris”. The research commission, which meets once a month, must therefore study and validate dozens of thesis juries each month, not to mention current affairs. “It’s a huge job and we try to check everything, but, given the means at our disposal, it’s difficult”, recognizes the former director of research at Polytechnique. Thus, the system is based on the supposed good faith of applicants. “Unfortunately, someone in bad faith can easily slip through the cracks,” regrets Benoît Deveaud. This example, certainly emblematic, is undoubtedly far from being isolated. It reveals, above all, a much broader problem in the French academic world, and even worldwide.