CHRONIC. Sciences Po, deciphering disinformation

Clément Viktorovitch returns every week to the debates and political issues. Sunday May 5: the events which took place at Sciences Po, and which were debated throughout the week.

What a story ! What controversy! Let’s start at the beginning: the bottom. The slogan of Sciences Po students is clear: they are mobilizing to protest against, in their words, “the ongoing genocide in Gaza”. We can disagree with the use of this word, we can consider that it lacks caution, or even that it is shocking. But I remind you that this is the term used by several international organizations, and not the least important ones. On January 26, the International Court of Justice recognized a “risk of genocide” in Gaza. The UN special rapporteur for the Palestinian territories released a report on March 25 entitled “Anatomy of a genocide”. It is therefore difficult to see how we could deny the right to Sciences Po students to use this same word.

Some also perceived anti-Semitic connotations in this mobilization. But without any specific writing, words or slogans being able to be reported. All we have is one image: students holding up their red-painted hands. A sign in which some wanted to see a reference to the lynching of two Israeli reservists in Ramallah, on October 12, 2000, during which a Palestinian victoriously raised his bloodstained hands. The similarity can be disturbing… if we forget that brandishing hands painted red is a symbol commonly used to denounce a massacre. On April 23, this sign was also used… in Tel Aviv, in a demonstration of support for Israeli hostages held by Hamas!

“If the only thing that we can fundamentally criticize Sciences Po students for is their hands painted red, perhaps we should have shown a little more caution before bringing charges against them an accusation as serious as that of anti-Semitism, especially at a time when authentic anti-Semitic acts are on the rise.”

Clement Viktorovich

on franceinfo

However, in formal terms, the occupation of a university or high school is illegal. This is an attack on the freedom to study. This mobilization is initiated by a minority of students, who are breaking the rules of the establishment… in the same way as all blocking operations in universities! I still remind you that not a year goes by without universities in France being occupied for one reason or another. Here too, we can deplore it, believing that nothing justifies breaking the legality. On the contrary, we can be delighted that students are getting involved in making their voices heard. But why would the blocking of an establishment suddenly become so shocking… when, until now, the student mobilizations have not, it seems to me, provoked such condemnations?

Disfavored treatment

Pro-Palestinian voices are the subject of disfavoring treatment, even a disinformation campaign. Because, all the same, we must repeat what has been said for ten days about Sciences Po. Prime Minister Gabriel Attal spoke of a “active and dangerous minority”. Sarah El Haïry, Minister Delegate for Youth, claimed that Sciences Po had been “sacked”and even “set to fire and blood”. And that’s not all: François-Xavier Bellamy, head of the LR list in the European elections, castigated “an entryism, a mixture of leftism and Islamism, which legitimizes anti-Semitic remarks”. Valérie Pécresse, president of the Île-de-France region, announced that she would suspend subsidies from Sciences Po. She believes that the security of the school is threatened by “a minority of radicalized people calling for anti-Semitic hatred”. Éric Ciotti, the president of the Republicans, considers that the management of Sciences Po “gives the go-ahead to anti-Semitic demands.”

As if reality no longer matters! Politics is no longer based on the facts, as it is possible to establish them, but on what everyone has decided to say about them. This, in my opinion, is the terrible observation of which Sciences Po has today become the symbol.