A French geographer was forced to leave his lecture by 20 masked and hooded pro-Palestinian students who called him a “Zionist” and a “terrorist” on April 1.
Fabrice Balanche, a geographer who specializes in the Middle East, told Le Point on Friday that he had been giving a lecture on Euro-Mediterranean agreements at Lyon-2 University when the protesters burst into the room and began chanting and raising placards.
“I was giving a lecture in an amphitheater in front of about fifty students when a group of about twenty people entered, chanting, “Racists, Zionists, you’re the terrorists,” and brandishing a sign saying, “For a free Palestine, no to ethnic cleansing,” Balanche told Le Point. “They were masked, wearing caps and hoods.”
Balanche added that they surrounded the lectern and insulted him.
“It was violent, physical, even if there were no blows,” he said. “Some brandished their phones, to be able to film any possible slip-up on my part. But I left the premises calmly, which disconcerted them.”
Balanche said that he did not know the protesters’ identities; however, an Instagram account for the group “Lyon-2 Autonome” claimed responsibility.
“I went to look: this account compiles eight pages about me, which are worthy of the antisemitic propaganda of the Third Reich,” he said.
The Instagram account for Lyon-2 Autonome claimed that the group’s actions were in protest for “Balanche’s unacceptable positions on Palestine and Syria” and to demand he stop teaching at the university.Â
The comments on Syria appear to be in reference to Balanche’s 2016 meeting with former Syrian leader Bashar Al-Assad alongside parliamentarians.
A group of more than 30 prominent French academics penned a letter condemning the incident on Saturday.
The statement, published in Le Point, affirmed the academics’ support for Fabrice Balanche, “whose expertise on the Middle East and particularly on Syria is incontestable,” and urged the presidency of the University Lyon-2 to exclude the student protesters from the university “if indeed they are.”
Lyon campus blockade
The incident came just one day after Balanche went on CNews to denounce a campus blockade on March 28.Â
The blockade was held by activists in protest against the university’s ban on holding an iftar (break of the Ramadan fast) in a university hall.Â
According to Balanche, this marked the “first Islamist blockade of a French university.”
The group Lyon-2 Autonome, however, denied a connection between the blockade and the protest against Balanche.
‘In the Islamists’ crosshairs’
Asked why he thought he might be a particular target for such activists, Balanche told Le Point that “I don’t have a good reputation among these student activists because I don’t advocate for Palestine, Hamas, or Hezbollah.”
He added that, ten years after the Bataclan attack, he was asked to speak about Islamist attacks, and chose to cover the topic of suicide attacks in Islam.
“I mentioned the case of women who commit suicide attacks,” he said. “This didn’t please a few students, who reported it to the university, accusing me of being Islamophobic and sexist.”
“I understood that, as a result of this, I would be in the Islamists’ crosshairs… I wasn’t mistaken,” he added.
Balanche is set to resume classes tomorrow but will need security presence to prevent future intrusions.Â
However, while some of his colleagues reportedly dismissed the incident as “overexcited young people having a post-adolescent crisis,” Balanche said, “The attackers I saw were Islamo-leftists, and Islamism has taken over.”
In a joint statement on Friday, Phillipe Baptiste (Minister responsible for Higher Education and Research) and Elisabeth Borne (Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research of France) said that the prohibition on breaking the fast on campus premises was within the rights of the university. “The university, as it has the right to do, considered that holding this religious activity could cause a disturbance of public order,” the statement read.
Philippe Baptiste held a separate interview with Le Parisien on Sunday, during which he said, “preventing a professor from teaching is extremely serious. These actions are the opposite of what a university should be: a place of debate and openness.”
He reported that both Balanche and the university intend to file a complaint about the incident, which his ministry supports.
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