The student union Unef is again under fire from critics. Part of the political class is offended by the organization of “single-sex” meetings.
Since last week, calls for the dissolution of the UNEF have multiplied. In question, an interview with the president of the student union, Mélanie Luce, who justified at the microphone of Europe 1, the organization of “single-sex” meetings, allowing, according to their promoters, people victims of discrimination to express more freely.
Meetings “forbidden to whites” that disturb, even the government. “People who claim to be progressive and distinguish people according to their skin, lead us to things that resemble fascism, it is extremely serious”, considered Jean-Michel Blanquer on BFMTV.
On the right, several voices demand the dissolution of the UNEF. On the left, the student union is defended. On the website of World, 250 former officials, including Jean-Luc Mélenchon or Benoît Hamon, condemn the words of the Minister of Education: “Signatories of this text, for some and some with sometimes profound disagreements with union and ideological practices and orientations of The UNEF, we believe that, through its history and the values resulting from the Grenoble charter that it embodies, the UNEF has its place in the public debate, ”they insist.
If the objective of the UNEF is to allow students to assert their rights and improve their living and studying conditions, certain controversies have however tarnished the image of the union in recent years.
In 2019, while the cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris is on fire, some members are being noticed unfavorably on social networks. The vice-president of the Unef-Lille, Hafsa Askar, notably post: “I don’t care about Notre-Dame de Paris because I don’t care about the history of France.” On the same event, another union official in Rennes stood out with a message in bad taste: “This is a national drama, a cathedral frame is burning.”
Latest controversy to date, on March 4, the University of Grenoble published a photo on its Twitter account showing collages targeting two teachers from Sciences-Po Grenoble: “Fascists in our lecture halls T […] and Kinzler resignation. Islamophobia kills. “Following the controversy and faced with requests, already, for dissolution, the UNEF assured not to be at the origin of the collages.
Could all of these controversies justify a dissolution? To obtain such a decision, taken in the Council of Ministers, the government must rely on one of the seven grounds set out in Article L212-1 of the Internal Security Code. This text provides in particular that can be dissolved all the groups which “either cause discrimination, hatred or violence against a person or a group of people because of their origin or their membership or their non-membership. a particular ethnicity, nation, race or religion, either propagate ideas or theories tending to justify or encourage this discrimination, this hatred or this violence. “
Lately, the government issued several decrees of dissolution: against the NGO BarakaCity, directed by the sulphurous Idriss Sihamed or against the small far-right group Generation Identity, assimilated to a “private militia”. In another register, can UNEF run the same risk? Unlikely, according to specialists.
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