Accused of "Islamophobia" at the beginning of the year, a professor of Sciences Po Grenoble was suspended from his functions by the management which accuses him of having made, since, "defamatory remarks", announced corroborating sources, this Monday.
This sanction led the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, to suspend the funding granted to the establishment by the community.
Science po, an institute for "political re-education"
The order of the director of the IEP Sabine Saurugger, revealed by
Le Figaro
, targets interviews granted in early December by the teacher, Klaus Kinzler, to the site of the weekly Marianne, to the daily L'Opinion and to the CNews channel. . The German teacher has, according to the director, "seriously disregarded several obligations", especially in terms of "professional discretion". "It is necessary to seize the disciplinary council", she adds in the decree which suspends him for four months.
In his interviews, the teacher described the IEP as an institute of "political re-education" by accusing a "hard core" of colleagues, followers of "woke" theories, of indoctrinating students, and the leadership of the 'IEP to let it go.
For his lawyers, who denounce a "witch hunt", Klaus Kinzler "was forced to speak in order to defend himself" after being implicated "in the public square".
"It poisons my life but it may be necessary to go all the way to find out who has the right to say what and in what situation," said the teacher, referring to a possible appeal before the administrative tribunal.
An "extremely problematic" speech
Contacted, the management of the IEP of Grenoble did not wish to react to "an internal measure". On December 13, in an interview with Marianne, Sabine Saurugger defended the establishment. “Mr. Kinzler criticizes a number of facts which are not correct. He says in particular that the management never protected him. Sciences-Po Grenoble is an establishment where freedom of expression and freedom of education are at the heart of the academic project, ”she said.
At the origin of the case, at the end of 2020, Klaus Kinzler and a colleague historian had exchanged vehement emails about a day of debates entitled "racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia", a term whose scientific character he disputed, while criticizing Islam.
On March 4, Klaus Kinzler and another teacher were the target of posters accusing them of "Islamophobia", posted by students and relayed on social networks by unions.
The director of the IEP had condemned "very clearly" these posters, while considering that the way in which Klaus Kinzler spoke of Islam was "extremely problematic".
Regional funding suspended
On November 26, 16 of the 17 IEP students prosecuted before a disciplinary body were acquitted, while the Minister of Higher Education had recommended sanctions against them.
Only one was the subject of a suspended temporary exclusion.
In a press release, Laurent Wauquiez justified his decision to suspend regional funding - around 100,000 euros per year excluding investment in projects, according to the executive - by a "long ideological and communitarian drift", which he said has just "crossed a new cap ”with the suspension of the teacher.
According to him, “a minority confiscated the debate” within the establishment, “without the management taking the measure of this worrying drift”.
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Suspension
Defamation
Political science
Islamophobia
Laurent Wauquiez
Grenoble
Isere
Society
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