Overview
- The Collège de France called off the 13–14 November event, with its administrator invoking responsibility for people’s safety and the serenity of on-campus events while reiterating the institution’s strict political neutrality.
- Higher education minister Philippe Baptiste welcomed the move as responsible and said he had urged a free, respectful and plural academic debate in discussions with the administrator in recent days.
- The conference, titled “La Palestine et l’Europe: poids du passé et dynamiques contemporaines,” was co-organized by historian Henry Laurens and Carep Paris and was set to feature academics and public figures including Dominique de Villepin and UN special rapporteur Francesca Albanese.
- The anti-racism group Licra condemned the program as an “anti-Zionist fair” and said it would bring the matter to the higher education minister.
- Press reports scrutinized Carep Paris over funding from the Doha Institute and Qatar Charity and cited sources portraying it as linked intellectually to the Muslim Brotherhood, characterizations reported by Le Figaro and reiterated by the JDD.