The administrator of the Collège de France gives in to pressure and cancels a conference on Palestine

The Collège de France has canceled an international conference entitled “Palestine and Europe”scheduled for November 13 and 14, citing “security reasons.” According to academic Pascal Maillard, Associate Professor at the UFR des Lettres de Strasbourg, and author of a post published on Mediapartthis decision follows ideological pressure from both the far-right press and the Minister of Higher Education and Research, Philippe Baptiste.

The conference, initiated by Professor Henry Laurens, “one of our greatest specialists in the Arab world”, was to bring together “ more than thirty researchers from a dozen countries: France, Italy, Belgium, United States, England, Switzerland, Turkey, Spain, Denmark, Canada, the Netherlands and Germany », specifies Maillard. According to him, the “ risk » mentioned by the administrator of the College, Thomas Römer, “ was fabricated by Le Point, which in an article on November 7 described the scientific event as a “high-risk pro-Palestinian conference” and conjectured “two days with a pro-Hamas tendency” “. At the same time, “ Licra denounced on “X” an “anti-Zionist fair”which constitutes, in passing, a real insult for the Collège de France, the organizers of the conference and all the scientists who participate in it,” writes the academic.

For Pascal Maillard, “ this cancellation is extremely serious, for three reasons, regardless of the fact that, with regard to the Collège de France, this decision is probably historic, having no equivalent since the 19th century “. He denounces “ a defeat of politics and a defeat of thought », believing that “ it provides a stepping stone to ideologies of the worst and also reinforces the suspicion of collusion between the French State and Zionism “.

The academic finally recalls that “ the administrator of the Collège de France gives in to pressure and cancels a conference on Palestine “, seeing in it the symbol of ” a worrying drift where academic freedom and critical thinking find themselves muzzled in the name of so-called institutional neutrality “.