Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan (LFI) were expected on Thursday in an amphitheater at the University of Lille, invited by a student association, to hold a conference on current events in Palestine. Except that this Wednesday noon, the university management made an about-face, now refusing to host the event for a question of “security”.
The announcement of this conference, the place where it was to be held, the theme, the guests and especially the logo of the association “Libre Palestine”, the organizer, had caused a strong reaction from several local elected officials, from Renaissance to the RN in through the Republicans. Even the socialist Raphaël Glucksmann was moved this Wednesday, deploring that the leader of LFI “appears” alongside an association whose logo “denies the existence of the State of Israel”.
“Pressure exerted on educational autonomy”
In addition to the logo, it was the fact that this conference, considered eminently political by its detractors, was being held in a public university which posed a problem. At the center of the controversy, the management of the University of Lille responded this Wednesday noon in a press release. If it was first recalled that “that the missions of universities include “freedom of information and expression with regard to political, economic, social and cultural problems”. That this freedom of expression involves in particular “the provision of premises” to student associations.
Except that… Denouncing the “pressure exerted on the educational and scientific autonomy of higher education establishments”, the University of Lille recognizes that the “conditions are no longer met to guarantee the serenity of the debates” during this conference. It was therefore decided to no longer allow it “within its walls”.
“Stop censorship!” Let the voices for peace speak. We will not be silent,” immediately reacted the boss of LFI in the Assembly, Mathilde Panot on “X”. It remains for “Libre Palestine” to find another private location, otherwise the conference would have to be canceled.