The conference on Palestine with Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan is canceled by the University of Lille

In a press release published Wednesday, the university believes that “the conditions are no longer met to guarantee the serenity of the debates”.

The conference on “Palestinian news” with the intervention of Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan, Franco-Palestinian LFI candidate in the European elections, scheduled for Thursday April 18, is finally canceled by the University of Lille. In a press release, the university believes that “the conditions are no longer met to guarantee the serenity of the debates”, due to the tensions caused by this conference.

In the process, LFI announced that the conference will take place in Lille on Thursday but “in a new place”. “We will not be silent, continues the press release. Communication about the new location will be sent to registrants”adds the party, targeting “the presidency of the university which shows itself incapable of resisting the pressures which attack freedom of expression”.

Several political parties, Renaissance, the National Rally and the Republicans, were opposed to the holding of this conference, in particular for the logo affixed at the bottom of the poster: a map of Israel colored in red on a green background, where it is written “Free Palestine”.

The university is moving forward “worrying rise in international tensions in recent days”Who “reverberates nationally and locally, just as it does at the university.” She also sayst “regret the pressure exerted on the educational and scientific autonomy of higher education establishments”.

“A propaganda conference”

The Renaissance MP from the North, Violette Spillebout, had, for example, asked about “the cancellation of this propaganda conference” because, according to her, “it is not with those who represent the most violent anti-Semitism and the desire to destroy Israel that the debates will progress towards peace.” For his part, the president of the Hauts-de-France region, Xavier Bertrand, criticizes the poster’s logo: “We cannot tolerate, in a French university, such a conference by La France insoumise, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and Rima Hassan who, through the ‘Free Palestine’ logo, deny the existence of the State of Israel “.