The University of Lyon II was strongly criticized on Friday by the regional executive and the Israeli embassy because a Palestinian activist attended a conference in the public the day before from which she had been canceled.
Mariam Abou Daqqa, activist of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), an organization described as terrorist by the European Union, briefly spoke from the room during a time of discussion, according to videos put online.
However, his “absence” at the event, organized Thursday evening by the Solidaires student union and the Palestine 69 collective, had been requested by the University after interventions by the prefecture and elected Republican officials.
The Region threatens to suspend its financial cooperation with the establishment
In a letter consulted by AFP, regional president Laurent Wauquiez (LR) threatened on Friday to “suspend its financial cooperation” with Lyon II if he did not obtain assurance that “this unacceptable speech will not be “is not produced with even the tacit consent of the University”.
The Israeli embassy in Paris, for its part, judged, in a press release, “shocking and dismaying to have allowed this spokesperson for the apology of terrorism to circumvent the ban on her intervention”.
It was “a public conference,” however, noted Jérôme Faÿner, president of the Palestine 69 collective. “We let the room speak. In this context, she spoke 10 minutes out of a 2.5 hour conference,” he told AFP, deploring a controversy of “unreasonable proportions”. Contacted by AFP, the University management did not react immediately.
Two conferences in the presence of the Franco-Palestinian lawyer Salah Hamouri, suspected by Israel of links with the PFLP, which he denies, have already been canceled this year in Lyon by the municipality.