Conference on Palestine: after the cancellation by the Collège de France, CAREP maintains the event in Paris
The Arab Center for Research and Political Studies of Paris (CAREP Paris), an independent research association in the human and social sciences, announced in a press release that the opening session of the conference “Palestine and Europe: weight of the past and contemporary dynamics” will finally be held in its premises, at 12 rue Raymond-Aron (Paris 13th), after its cancellation by the Collège de France. The institution announced on Friday the cancellation of this international conference, scheduled for November 13 and 14, citing “security reasons”. According to academic Pascal Maillard, associate professor at the UFR des Lettres de Strasbourg, this decision was taken following ideological pressure coming both “from the far-right press and from the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste”.
The conference, initiated by Professor Henry Laurens, a specialist in the Arab world, was to bring together more than thirty researchers from a dozen countries (France, Italy, Belgium, United States, United Kingdom, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany). According to Pascal Maillard, the “risk” mentioned by the administrator of the Collège de France, Thomas Römer, “was fabricated from scratch” by an article in the Point calling the event a “high-risk pro-Palestinian conference” and relayed by messages from Licra denouncing an “anti-Zionist fair”.
The academic considered this cancellation “extremely serious”, seeing it as an unprecedented attack on academic freedom. In the wake of this controversy, a petition signed by nearly 1,500 researchers, teachers and students calls for the resignation of Minister Philippe Baptiste. Its initiators denounce a decision seen as a challenge to academic freedom and the independence of research.
In its press release, CAREP Paris thanked “the speakers for confirming their coming to France and their participation, as well as the numerous academics, researchers and students who expressed their attachment to academic freedom and the independence of research”. The center recognizes that the new location “will unfortunately not make it possible to accommodate the entire planned audience in optimal conditions”, but affirms that this move “becomes an opportunity to affirm a fundamental principle: academic knowledge is not limited to one place and it is intended to be disseminated to as many people as possible”.
The conference will be broadcast live and fully recorded. CAREP invites universities, cultural institutions and NGOs to open collective viewing spaces. Despite the announcements from the minister and the administrator of the Collège de France, he confirmed that the event would take place and called on the public to “come in large numbers”.
