Île-de-France: why Valérie Pécresse refuses the name of the high school "Angela Davis"

Europe 1 with AFP 16:31 pm, March 29, 2023

The LR president of the Ile-de-France region Valérie Pécresse calls Wednesday to the State to decide on the attribution of the name of Angela Davis to a high school in Saint-Denis, because of critical positions on the France of the American activist. "The name of Angela Davis does not have consensus," Valérie Pécresse told the standing committee of the Regional Council, which was to deliberate on this appointment.

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A thesis that feeds the "community withdrawals", says Pécresse

The former presidential candidate has therefore decided "to withdraw this deliberation and to personally seize the Minister of National Education and the regional prefect under the control of legality to analyze this issue," she explained. "While waiting for the State to decide, I will turn to the educational community and the mayor of Saint-Denis so that we look for a new name for this establishment," added the president of the first region of France, which has jurisdiction over high schools.

If "the quest for dignity and equality are at the heart of the commitment" of the civil rights activist, figure of the fight for the equality of black Americans, her "conviction that racism is a systemic matter" is a thesis that "feeds community withdrawals and can encourage violence," says Valérie Pécresse. "A number of Angela Davis' recent positions on France are problematic," added the right-wing elected official, targeting in particular a forum co-signed by the academic in 2021.

"We have to learn to be proud of the France"

In the latter, intellectuals from all over the world castigated the "colonial mentality (which) manifests itself in the governance structures of the France, especially vis-à-vis citizens and racialized immigrants, as evidenced by measures such as the dissolution of the CCIF (Collective against Islamophobia in France)" or "the law against the wearing of the veil". But for Valérie Pécresse, "in a French high school, you have to learn to be proud of the France".

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In May 2018, 14 of the 17 members of the high school's board of trustees had approved Angela Davis' choice for the name of the school, built by the region and inaugurated the previous year. The mayor of Saint-Denis at the time, Laurent Russier, had validated this choice. But since then, "the regional right has always, under false pretexts, refused to formalize this name," protested the opposition group ecologist in a statement. The LR and related group proposed in an amendment to rename the high school after Rosa Parks, another figure in the fight against racism in the United States.