Laurent Vallet suspended for cocaine purchase: Agnès Chauveau appointed interim president of the INA

Agnès Chauveau, the director general of the National Audiovisual Institute (INA), has been appointed interim president following the suspension of Laurent Vallet , who was arrested at the end of July for buying cocaine, according to a decree published this Friday, August 15, in the Official Journal. This decree was signed by the Minister of Culture, Rachida Dati, who oversees the INA. She announced on Tuesday that she was suspending Laurent Vallet "pending further information," assuring that she had "taken note" of his accusations "by the press."

A few hours earlier, judicial and police sources had indicated to AFP that the now ex-president of the INA had been arrested on July 29 at his Paris home by the police after having cocaine delivered to him, confirming information from Valeurs Actuelles . In a press release, Laurent Vallet had said he "took note" of this suspension, pronounced according to him "in view of the hearing to which [he is] summoned at the beginning of September at the Paris judicial court for a therapeutic injunction" .

Media specialist Agnès Chauveau has worked at the INA since 2015, after being dismissed from her position as director of the journalism school at Sciences-Po due to successive plagiarisms in columns she presented for France Culture and the Huffington Post . She has been deputy director general since 2021. Viewers know her face: she appears on the program Rembob'Ina presented by Patrick Cohen on the LCP channel, which looks back at major moments in recent history by drawing on the INA's television archives.

For his part, Laurent Vallet, 55, was reappointed in May for a third five-year term as head of the INA, on the proposal of Rachida Dati. He has held the post since May 2015, when he succeeded Agnès Saal. Saal, who had been in the post for less than a year, was forced to resign at the request of the then Minister of Culture, Fleur Pellerin, after taxi fares exceeding €40,000 in ten months were revealed.

The INA is involved in Rachida Dati's public broadcasting reform project. It plans to create a holding company, France Médias, which would also oversee France Télévisions and Radio France.