This is the story of a professor of language science who mistook his grandiose dreams for reality. Between an oversized ego and digital stagecraft, this is the tale of an academic hoax that will, for him, be settled in court.

Florent Montaclair, aged 56, is currently the subject of an investigation opened by the Montbéliard public prosecutor’s office (Doubs), concerning several alleged offences, including forgery, use of forged documents, fraud and unlawful assumption of title.

The inquiry also extends to checking parts of his academic record, in particular an alleged PhD obtained from an American university whose very existence is now being called into question.

A perfectly devised and executed stratagem

To burnish his academic aura, he is said to have set up in recent years an entirely fictitious organisation, carefully named so as to suggest international recognition and scientific prestige.

Once this organisation had been dreamed up, everything became simple: it announced its “results”, and Professor Montaclair’s name naturally appeared among the laureates. Unsurprisingly, he thus found himself awarded this prize, which he had himself helped to define and bring into being.

Armed with this distinction, presented as ‘international’, the accolade was then woven into his career. It appeared on his CV and in his professional presentations, projecting the image of a researcher recognised at the highest level. This ‘award’ thus became a lever of credibility, boosting his visibility and shoring up his position in academic circles, while potentially opening up new career opportunities.

The harder the fall

But in the digital age of permanent fact-checking, lying is a risky business. It was when colleagues at Marie & Louis Pasteur University of Franche-Comté (source in French), as well as journalists, sought to verify the origins of this mysterious prize – which no one in specialist circles at the Sorbonne or at Oxford had ever heard of – that they began to smell a rat.

The investigation quickly brought to light the complete absence of any legal structure, genuine jury or funds associated with this prize. The ‘Nobel of philology’ was nothing but a chimera.

And as so often, such stories end badly, starting with his expulsion from the university. The lecturer “no longer holds any position whatsoever within the university ” where he had been employed for more than 20 years, the institution’s deputy director of communications said.

A process to assess the facts he may be accused of has been launched in parallel by the Ministry of Education, and could also result in disciplinary measures, including the outright withdrawal of his professorial title.