Anonymous accuser behind Orélien AI allegations identifies himself

Samuel Fitoussi, a columnist at Le Figaro Magazine who describes himself as anti-woke, has acknowledged running the anonymous X account that triggered allegations that Haitian-Québécois novelist Thélyson Orélien used artificial intelligence to write his bestseller, C’était ça ou mourir. As this publication reported on Sept. 25, the Académie Goncourt removed the novel from its prize longlist after the accusations emerged. The academy said the book was, “in all likelihood,” very largely the product of AI and that its withdrawal was intended to protect the integrity of both the prize and the academy. The claims began on Sept. 21, when the account Balance ton Claude posted analyses of passages using the detection tool Pangram. It said tests from different points in the manuscript had almost always returned a 100% AI result. The post had received nearly five million views by Sept. 25. Pangram assessed the book as appearing more machine-generated than human-written. The company puts its false-positive rate for book analysis at 0.003%, while University of Chicago researchers concluded last year that the tool almost never generated false positives for medium- and long-length passages. Orélien has denied using AI in connection with the novel. He later said he wanted to concentrate on his physical and mental health rather than publicly address the accusations and Goncourt’s decision; Franceinfo reported that he continued to deny wrongdoing after ending his promotional tour in France. The Goncourt decision was not unanimous. Pascal Bruckner opposed the exclusion, saying he would not participate in what he called a “lynching” and describing the book as the best novel of the season. Pierre Assouline said the academy had to act swiftly because the selection was about to circulate through the Goncourt des lycéens, Goncourt des détenus and international Choix Goncourt programmes. The dispute widened when the Décrypteurs team found that some of Orélien’s columns in Canadian and French publications had been plagiarized. La Presse identified one 2013 column as an almost entirely reworked translation of a Philippine Star article published several days earlier. The repercussions reached the book’s Canadian publisher and a Quebec literary festival. Boréal suspended the novel’s promotional activities while investigating, saying it had not used AI after receiving the manuscript and was working with Orélien to establish that he wrote it. The Salon du livre de l’Estrie also withdrew his guest-of-honour designation and invitations to two appearances. The controversy has not halted commercial interest. The book, which tells of a Haitian’s exile in Canada, sold nearly 18,000 copies, with sales higher in the week the allegations broke than in the preceding week. It had already won the prix Méduse, prix Strasbourg Espoir CIC and prix du roman Fnac, the last awarded on the same day as the first accusation. Following its Goncourt removal, it remained in the running for the Renaudot, Femina and Médicis prizes. Fitoussi said he and the collective behind the account acted because he feared “a world where no one would write or read anymore.” The case has become a broader argument in French literature over whether AI use negates authorship, can be an authorial tool or challenges the premise of literary creation itself.