The deputies began on Tuesday May 6 to discuss a bill to fight against anti -Semitism in higher education, without going very far in its exam, during a tense session where the accusations and the invective.
Only the first article in the text, which had been adopted unanimously in the Senate, was able to be voted on Tuesday in the Assembly, the rest of the discussion to resume this Wednesday afternoon. This first article plans to register awareness of the fight against anti -Semitism and racism among the training missions of establishments.
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The text, carried by Pierre Henriet (horizons) and Constance the grip (macronist group together for the Republic), also intends to strengthen the prevention and reporting devices, by making compulsory within each establishment “referents” dedicated to the fight against racism and anti -Semitism. “Not a single student should hesitate to go to class because he is afraid of being exposed to anti -Semitism,” hammered the Minister of Higher Education Philippe Baptiste at the opening of the debates. “Since October 7, 2023, we have witnessed an alarming increase in anti-Semitic acts in our society, and higher education, unfortunately, has not been spared,” he added.
Insoumise France pointed out
The debates stretched out over the evening. Insoumise France, the only group to have voted against article 1, wanted to rewrite it using the definition of discrimination of the penal code, not containing the word anti -Semitism. The rebellious, who also criticized the lack of means for new training courses, were accused of wanting to “invisible” anti -Semitism by right -wing, far -right and macronist deputies.
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-The Minister responsible for the fight against discrimination Aurore Bergé also challenged the rebellious, accusing them of “electoral strategy” and of “bringing up” fear “vis-à-vis” of our Jewish compatriots “. The LFI deputies of the LFI deputies, Mathilde Panot accused her in return to “twist the facts” and “to instrumentalize anti -Semitism to silence the voices for peace on the genocide in Palestine”.
Disciplinary procedure
The deputies will not examine until Wednesday article 3 of the text, which is even more debated than the first. Deleted during his examination in committee at the Assembly, he provides for the creation of a “common disciplinary section” to establishments of the same academic region, chaired by a member of the administrative jurisdiction.
The Pierre Henriet co -rapporteur – who recalled that nine out of ten Jewish students say they have undergone anti -Semitic acts at university, according to a survey of the Union of Jewish students of France – intends to defend the reintroduction by amendment of this provision. According to him, it would allow heads of establishments to outsource the disciplinary process on the most sensitive files. “The strengthening of the disciplinary procedure is necessary”, these approaches being often “too long”, and “anti -Semitic acts, too rarely sanctioned”, said MP Modem Géraldine Bannier.
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But the left is opposed to this article 3. “The desire to professionalize disciplinary justice by the use of an administrative judge broke with the tradition of autonomous universities”, castigated the environmental deputy Steevy Gustave. Communist Jean-Paul Lecoq criticized him the list of facts liable to a disciplinary sanction added to the education code by the same article, including in particular “the facts likely to undermine order, to the proper functioning of the establishment”. According to him, provisions which risk “infringing rights and freedom of demonstration of students”.
