The management of Sciences Po Grenoble regrets the “political” decision of the president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Laurent Wauquiez, to suspend funding from the community to the IEP.
The decision came after Klaus Kinzler, a German teacher accused of “Islamophobia” earlier this year, was suspended for four months from his post on Monday, December 20. The management of the IEP accuses the teacher of having made “defamatory remarks” in interviews granted in early December to various media.
Qualifying the measure of Laurent Wauquiez of “regrettable”, the direction of the IEP specifies in a press release on Tuesday that “the financial support of the Region (…) does not consist of subsidies but mainly in the allocation of scholarships to students”. “This decision also seems to be motivated by a political motive”, adds the text, which calls on the president of the region to “reverse his decision in the interest of the students”.
“The Grenoble-UGA IEP is now the subject of inept accusations of ‘ideological and communitarian drift’, of ‘wokism’ or even of ‘cancel culture’, which have no basis,” assures the management.
A controversy against a background of “Islamophobia”
Laurent Wauquiez’s decision was notably greeted by Marine Le Pen and Eric Zemmour, two presidential candidates. At the Regional Council of Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes, the environmental opposition was worried about “the extremist drifts of Mr. Wauquiez”, accusing him in a press release of “playing inquisitors with the encouragement of Eric Zemmour”.
As a reminder, the case was born at the end of 2020 when Klaus Kinzler had criticized in an email a day of debates entitled “racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia”, by contesting the fact of putting these three concepts on an equal footing and by putting in causes the scientific nature of the term “Islamophobia”.
On March 4, the professor was, along with another teacher, the target of posters accusing him of “Islamophobia” posted by students at the entrance to the IEP and relayed on social networks by unions.
At the time, the management had condemned “very clearly” these posters, while considering that the way in which Klaus Kinzler spoke of Islam was “extremely problematic”. This Tuesday, the management believes to have held “without reservation” alongside the two professors incriminated and to have taken “the necessary measures” for their safety.