“Free Maurice Papon”, “Hitler”, a swastika… This is what a bunch of words revealed last week on the big screen during a lecture at the Sorbonne’s health faculty. The university management reacted by announcing that they had taken legal action thereafter “very serious, insulting and anti-Semitic statements”, he announced in a press release on November 24.
“Sorbonne University is aware of the very serious, offensive and anti-Semitic statements made on Thursday during the DES general medical lecture at the Faculty of Health. The authorities condemn in the strongest terms this kind of action. he assured, reaffirming “His commitment to fight anti-Semitismracism and all forms of discrimination”. University transmits “all the elements it has” to the public prosecutor “as soon as possible”, based on article 40 of the Criminal Procedure Code.
This reference comes after the Sorbonne University “received a report of anti-Semitic comments displayed on the amphitheater screen during the lecture.” “Six teachers and approximately one hundred students, during this course, were exposed to comments that were explicitly racist and fabricated apology for Nazism, displayed on the amphitheater screen following responses given to the Wooclap tool (digital education support, editor’s note) used when teaching, he continued.
Wooclap allows teachers to ask questions to the entire lecture hall; from their personal devices, each person then offers an answer which is then displayed on the teacher’s screen in the form of a collection of words – the largest of which are those most frequently quoted by students.
The context is still vague, but the question is a priori harmless “Where did you find the answer?” asked by a teacher, there were students who answered “stage”, “reflection”, “patient response”. Others opted for anti-Semitic responses, including tributes to former collaborator prefect Maurice Papon, mentions of Holocaust denier Vincent Reynouard and Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler. Islamic Commandments (“fast sharia”) also crept into the response.
The course was stopped and the amphitheater was evacuated. The Department of General Medicine has been established “a psychological unit that can be accessed by all students who feel the need”, And “Secularism, the fight against racism and anti-Semitism have also been contacted.”
“Identification of the perpetrator is underway and the university will initiate disciplinary proceedings once the identification is carried out.” warned the university. The Sorbonne has faced several anti-Semitic acts by students in recent months. On August 24, a survey “Jews, for or against” been proposed to in a student WhatsApp group; on September 15, students were removed from the same WhatsApp group because their names sounded Jewish. Disciplinary procedures were launched against one of the identified perpetrators.
