“It is a decision that we deeply regret”, comments the management

“It is a decision that we deeply regret because this decision risks depriving many precarious students of the scholarships which allow them to finance their studies”, explains the director of Sciences Po Grenoble Sabine Saurugger on Tuesday December 21 on franceinfo, after the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region Laurent Wauquiez announced to suspend the funding – around 100,000 euros – granted to the IEP.

Laurent Wauquiez believes that the establishment has “crossed a new course” in his “long ideological and communitarian drift”. He strongly criticizes the decision of the director of the establishment to suspend for four months a teacher, Klaus Kinzler, accused of being taken out of his reserve and of having made defamatory remarks. His name was stuck on the facade of the establishment last March by students to denounce his “Islamophobia”.

“I am amazed at the image that is portrayed of the IEP in the media. This is not the institution that I run.”

Sabine Saurugger, Director of Sciences Po Grenoble

to franceinfo

“The IEP is a republican establishment where we train young men and women to become decision-makers of tomorrow. It is an establishment where we respect secularism, the strictest freedom of expression and academic freedom”, she argues.

>> Accusations of Islamophobia: we explain the controversy to Sciences Po Grenoble

Sabine Saurugger recalls that “Laurent Wauquiez has been a member of the IEP Grenoble board of directors for many years” and assure that she would be “very happy” to discuss with him about recommendations for improvement.

In addition, the director of Sciences Po Grenoble denounces the attacks made on the teacher in question, which are “simply inadmissible” and “serious”. She also recalls that it was not her establishment that decided not to suspend the students who relayed accusations of Islamophobia on social networks, but a commission “unrelated” with Sciences Po Grenoble, which received the file at the request of the rectorate.

>> Last May, three months after the affair of the posters denouncing professors, the atmosphere remained very degraded at the IEP Grenobel.