- Who knew the world of language study had schemes worthy of a movie plot?
Being recognized for your work feels good, no matter what you do. Unfortunately, the sad fact is that most of us will toil our lives for a paycheck and maybe a “thank you.”
In such a situation, you might as well give yourself an award for a job well done.
This is what Florent Montaclair, a professor of philology, is suspected of having done. The bespectacled Frenchman received the Gold Medal of Philology in 2016 in recognition of his life’s work.
Well, of course he received the award. He invented the medal and the organization awarding it.
To make his new medal seem more valid, Montaclair organized events to award a similar medal to other notable academics as well. Later, due to his achievements, he was given a doctorate by an American university — which Montaclair had also made up.
Now, a decade later, French authorities have launched an investigation into Montaclair and his imaginary awards. But what crime could he have committed?
Well, that’s the million-dollar question right there. Nobody is quite sure what law, if any, Montaclair has broken. Nor do they know why he concocted such a ridiculously complicated plan to hand out an award to himself.
Maybe he just wanted to be recognized.
Prestigious Award
So, let’s start at the beginning. Until 2015, Florent Montaclair, currently 56, was a nobody, to be perfectly honest.
His greatest professional achievement at that point was being a professor of philology, the study of language through historical sources. Montaclair taught literature at the Marie and Louis Pasteur University in Besançon and wrote fantasy novels in his spare time.
Then, suddenly, things changed. A local newspaper ran a headline announcing that Montaclair was about to win the Gold Medal of Philology.
This prize is handed out every five years to a person who has made significant contributions to the field of philology. Its previous recipients include, among others, the famous Italian academic and writer Umberto Eco.
Basically, the thing was the Nobel Prize in Montaclair’s field.
Wow, what an honor! In 2016, the International Society of Philology (INSOP) handed the golden medal to Montaclair at a public event.
With the medal in hand, it seemed the academic world started taking note of Montaclair. Soon afterward, he received a doctorate from the University of Philology and Education in Delaware.
The next year, an honorary Gold Medal in Philology was awarded to none other than renowned American linguist and political activist Noam Chomsky. In 2018, it was announced that Romanian academic Eugen Simion would also win the prize.
Imaginary Organizations
But hold your horses! Wasn’t this prize supposed to only go out every five years?
Indeed, it was. And that’s one of the things that started ringing alarm bells in Romania.
Let’s face it, Romania doesn’t get much recognition internationally. So, when the news broke that Simion was about to win the prestigious Gold Medal in Philology, local journalists started looking into the prize to hype up the academic’s achievement.
They found something very odd. The award didn’t exist.
Or, well, there was an amateurish website for the INSOP. However, there was no indication whatsoever that the organization existed beyond that single page online.
Well, what about the University of Philology and Education that’s affiliated with the society? It handed a doctorate to Montaclair, so surely it must exist?
Nope, it doesn’t. The (misspelled) address listed on the INSOP website points to a tiny business complex in Lewes, Delaware.
What on earth was going on? The journalists did more sleuthing and discovered that both the INSOP and the university were connected to Montaclair himself.
He had made up everything to award himself a prize that doesn’t exist outside of the medal he apparently handed to himself.
Oh, and further investigations found that he bought the physical medal from a Paris jeweler for about $300.
Crime or Not?
In the end, the whole thing was nothing more than a hoax Montaclair set up to award himself a nonexistent prize. Now, after everything has become clear, French authorities have started an investigation into Montaclair and his made-up award.
But… Why?
That’s an excellent question. Nobody seems quite sure why Montaclair concocted this unnecessarily complex scheme and how he benefited from it.
According to French public prosecutor Paul-Édouard Lallois, Montaclair may have used the imaginary award to embellish his resume. Lallois claims that in 2018, he requested a promotion from the French ministry of higher education, citing his award and “doctorate” in the application.
He ultimately received the promotion. And that may have been fraud.
“Anyone can create a medal. You can order online the ‘best journalist in France’ medal, in gold, silver, or bronze, award it to yourself, and hold your own little ceremony quietly at home over drinks. If you stay at home with your little medals on top of your mantelpiece, there are no legal consequences,” Lallois explained to The Guardian.
“If, on the other hand, you mention it to your employer, if you mention it to the media, and if all this leads to a certain amount of professional recognition, then it has concrete implications, and that is where the notion of fraud can begin to arise,” he added.
‘He Did It for a Little Glory’
Has Montaclair really committed fraud, though? After all, Montaclair came up with the entire Gold Medal of Philology on his own.
As such, he hasn’t claimed that it’s something that it’s not, like the earlier-mentioned Nobel Prize, for instance. All Montaclair has stated is that he got the medal, which is a fact.
He may have given it to himself, but he did receive it.
This is also what Montaclair’s defense appears to be. According to his lawyer, everyone is allowed to be “imaginative” and make up an award. There’s no law against that.
In the end, perhaps the question we should be asking is why Montaclair did all this? Nobody in their right mind would come up with an international organization, commission a real gold medal, and then organize a public ceremony to hand that medal to themselves without a reason.
This is also one of the questions Lallois and the French authorities are trying to answer.
“Why did this man risk his entire career to do this? He is very intelligent, cultured, and interesting,” wondered Lallois.
“I can only imagine he did it for a little glory and recognition from the academic community and his peers.”
Want to know about other French fraudsters? Read our story about the French gamblers who took control of the weather to win big.