Physics Nobel winner criticized over controversial video

Now garnering thousands of hits online, the clip from 2010 shows Gérard Mourou performing alongside several scantily clad women in a promotional video intended to showcase his work on laser technology.

The Frenchman was revealed this week as one of three winners of the prestigious nine million Swedish kronor (around $1 million) physics award. He and Strickland shared the prize with American Arthur Ashkin for their work in laser physics.

Much has been made of the announcement as Strickland became the first female physics laureate for 55 years. Her win came a day after the European nuclear research center Cern suspended Alessandro Strumia, of Pisa University, for claiming the discipline "was invented and built by men."

But while campaigners for sexual equality in the lab have been heartened by Strickland's win, the emergence of the controversial footage shows that Strumia's view may be more widespread.

Running to almost four minutes, the film is entitled "Have you seen ELI," a reference to the ELI Delivery Consortium, a European research collaboration that Mourou is credited with bringing into existence.

The clip begins with a small boy appearing to take an interest in optics. Viewers then see Mourou -- of the the École Polytechnique near Paris -- teaching a group of students in a classroom. A young female student flutters her eyelids at him to reveal a hidden message: "I love ELI."

'The alpha males of physics'

But this and Mourou's depiction as a sports-car-driving alpha male is not the main source of controversy. What has angered critics is a dancing scene where Mourou and two male colleagues are accompanied by a group of women in lab coats and -- in some cases -- very little else.

Two of the women can be seen dancing provocatively before eventually stripping off their lab coats to reveal tight-fitting tops and extra short hot pants. The video, created in 2010, was circulated by students and professors at the renowned French research institute where Mourou teaches and was seen in scientific circles.

But it resurfaced this week after the prize announcement, thanks to Leonid Schneider, a German scientific journalist. He tweeted a link to his followers and later followed it up with an article he published in his For Better Science blog under the title "The alpha males of physics."

"Women scientists are really shocked because this is what they apparently experience in the science field," he said.

"I wonder if he (Gerard Mourou) would still get the Nobel Prize if the Nobel Assembly were aware of this video," Schneider said.

"A Nobel prize winner should be a role model for other scientists, not just someone publishing many important papers."

CNN reached out to Mourou but he has not returned messages left for him.

Jean-Paul Chambaret, a friend and colleague of Mourou who also appeared in the film, told CNN it was shot during Paris Ville Lumière, a big scientific event in the French capital. He said the video came about after he and Mourou presented a project on laser technology to children at the event. It was intended to "present the research team in a humorous way," he told Le Monde.

Alhough France's National Center for Scientific Reaearch (CNRS) is credited as a producer of the video, its spokesman told CNN that "management neither commissioned nor produced this film, which is solely the personal initiative of the researcher and his team. And our organization has never relayed this film. In addition, many CNRS people think it's an inappropriate way to promote science."

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