A French scholar is under investigation for fabricating a linguistics award modeled after the Nobel Prize so that he could declare himself its winner.
Foreign news agencies reported on 6 May 2026 that Florent Montaclair, from Besançon in eastern France, received a gold medal of honor in Philology in 2016 during a prestigious ceremony held at the Parliament building in Paris, attended by ministers and several Nobel laureates.
However, the award turned out to be a fabrication, as did the organization claiming to present it—the "International Society of Philology"—both evidently created by Montaclair to enhance his academic reputation.
Philology is the study of language through ancient texts and documents.
Currently, investigators in Besançon are examining whether any laws were broken, while the university where Montaclair taught for over 20 years has suspended him indefinitely.
"It's incredible, almost like something out of a movie," said Paul-Edouard Laloux, the prosecutor overseeing the investigation.
According to Laloux, Montaclair began this deception in 2015, coinciding with a local Besançon newspaper headline proclaiming, "Local man among Nobel Prize contenders."
At that time, reports stated Montaclair was among the final five nominees for a prestigious international award. By December that year, he was declared the winner, and in June the following year, a grand ceremony was held in Paris.
Later that same year, the story escalated when Montaclair welcomed Noam Chomsky, the renowned 88-year-old American philosopher and linguist, to a ceremony in Brussels where he was awarded an honorary gold medal by the International Society of Philology.
Videos of the ceremony are available online, as is the fake society’s website, which lists award recipients dating back to 1967, including the famous Italian writer Umberto Eco. However, the unprofessional quality of the website should have raised suspicions long ago.
Meanwhile, Montaclair embellished his own biography by claiming to hold a doctorate from the University of Philology and Education in Lewis, Delaware, USA—a university that does not exist in any records.
"The Philology gold medal was entirely fabricated by Florent Montaclair, who awarded it to himself through an academic society he created, and the university he claimed to be affiliated with exists only on a website," said prosecutor Laloux.
The scheme was uncovered after Montaclair named Romanian linguist Eugen Simion as the next award recipient. The news caused a stir in Romania but also raised doubts among journalists there, prompting further investigation.
Although the truth began to emerge in 2019, it went largely unnoticed in France, allowing Montaclair to continue his university work as usual.
The case only came to official light last year when Montaclair was scheduled to chair a discussion on "Fake News," and a colleague recalled hearing rumors about the scandal originating from Romania.
Le Monde reported that when police searched his home in February this year, Montaclair told officers, "I suppose this is about the medal," and confessed to commissioning the medal from a jeweler shortly before the Paris ceremony, paying 250 euros (about 9,500 baht).
"It is not fraud but an attempt to create a new honor in academia, albeit a failed one," Montaclair said.
Prosecutors must now decide whether fabricating this award improperly advanced Montaclair’s career; otherwise, it may be difficult to prove criminal wrongdoing.
Montaclair defended himself by saying that creating a worthless award is not illegal in itself, and it was local media that chose to compare it to the "Nobel Prize."
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Source:bbc