« Cheney Flip Flops On Flip Flopping. | Main | Into the Woods, again »
March 24, 2005
My Home (?) Away from Home
The university was created in the early 1970s, in overt reaction to the leftism of the French university system at the time. It was designedly a right-of-center university at its founding. Unfortunately, this orientation seems to have brought to the faculty a more-than-healthy crop of Holocaust deniers.
The latest problem is a faculty member named Bruno Gollnisch, a professor of Japanese civilization who is also the number two man in Jean-Marie Le Pen's far-right political party and a member of the European parliament.
Back in October he was quoted as saying that while he did not deny the existence of gas chambers, he has seen no persuasive evidence that they were actually used on Jews. He also thinks the number of Jewish victims of the Holocaust is exaggerated and open to debate. These strike my sensibilities, as a Jew and a descendant of Holocaust victims, as outrageous.
On the other hand, the university has reacted by suspending him for five years ... which strikes my American sensibilities as outrageous.
And here I thought this was just a fun place to teach, drink good wine, and eat good bread and cheese...
Posted by Eric at March 24, 2005 9:46 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.isthatlegal.org/cgi-bin/mt33/mt-tb.cgi/46.
Comments
What I wonder about is why any French person would even have neo-nazi sympathies. Blatent racism, or anti-semitism, maybe. But Nazism? Isn't that like loathing your own country?
Posted by: Sean S. at March 24, 2005 4:00 PM
Well, you forget that many French were active collaborators who fully supported the Nazis in their "work".
Posted by: saurabh at March 24, 2005 6:21 PM
Well yes, people will alway do the denial thing when it comes to the Holocaust, it happened it was mass murder of millions of little kids and old people.
People who want the myth all over the world don't understand what can happen to that person, if that group becomes the enemy of the state.
AND IT WAS NOT 6 MILLION IT WAS 12 MILLION, AND 52 MILLION KILLED IN WORLD WAR TWO.
If my 3 were alive all could tell you that sad fact of mass murder by hilter's boys, my father also helped to stop that mass murder 5-1941 to 9-1945, U.S.Army, "never forget who stop the murder".
Posted by: Fred Dawes at March 24, 2005 7:20 PM
Hello i am a french student from the university Jean Moulin Lyon III and i wanted to correct a few things....
First this university was not created in the early 1970's... it s about a 100 years old (it was renamed in the early 70's though) ... my father and grand father went to university Lyon III and i m proud i m a student there too.
It really is just a rumor that this university is racist or whatever.
Yes there is one professor with very particular opinions but i know many black students as well as jews who went to his classes and they told me he never said such things or even made any allusions to these things during class; they think he s a real good teacher.
Now we have more than 700 professors here at University Lyon III and only 7 of them share such ideas. There are blacks, jews, asians, muslims.... among professors as well as students.We all get along together because the key word in this university is "tolerance".
And in my opinion, it s very weird to hear such things from american people who dont even make it a crime to say racist things or to collect Nazi plates!!! That's what is shocking
Posted by: A happy student in Lyon III at April 5, 2005 12:24 PM
Hey, i'm a student of Jean Moulin Lyon too...:)))
Posted by: Detox at March 30, 2006 8:58 AM