The Minister of National Education, Jean-Michel Blanquer, described Wednesday, December 22 on LCI as a
"formal error"
the decision of the management of Science Po Grenoble to suspend for four months a professor accused of Islamophobia, for
"remarks defamatory ”
.
"I think there is a formal error in the fact of having suspended him,"
said Jean-Michel Blanquer, saying to himself
"certain that the priority is not to sanction this gentleman"
.
Read alsoSuspension of Klaus Kinzler at Sciences Po Grenoble: the letter of 40 personalities to Frédérique Vidal
Asked about the decision of the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, to suspend the funding of the community in response to the Institute of Political Studies, Jean-Michel Blanquer replied:
"I think we must of course react. "
"Perhaps it is not always spectacular measures that must be taken,"
he added, however.
The controversy has agitated academia and politics since the suspension Monday of Klaus Kinzler, professor of German at the IEP in Grenoble. In interviews, the teacher described the IEP as an institute of
"political re-education"
, accusing a
"hard core"
of colleagues, followers of
"woke"
theories
, of indoctrinating students, and the leadership of the IEP to let it go.
Originally, at the end of 2020, Klaus Kinzler and a fellow historian had exchanged vehement emails about a day of debates entitled
"racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia"
by challenging this formulation and criticizing Islam.
On March 4, Klaus Kinzler was, with another teacher, the target of posters accusing him of
"Islamophobia"
posted by students at the entrance of the IEP and relayed on social networks by unions.
At the time, the management had condemned
"very clearly"
these posters, while considering that the way in which Klaus Kinzler spoke of Islam was
"extremely problematic"
.
Read alsoSciences Po Grenoble, at the heart of a political battle
On LCI, Jean-Michel Blanquer again questioned
“wokism”
:
“It's ideology instead of science,”
he said.
"I hear the director of Science po
(Sabine Saurugger)
say that her house is not infested by
" wokism "
and that what she wants is serenity, we want to agree with those two points, ”
he said. The minister recommended not to confuse
“victims”
and
“guilty”
in this affair. He himself considers that the culprits are
"those who made tags"
aimed at the professor and that they could only ignorethey provoked
"death threats on someone"
.
