Through Dorine Goth
Published on 20 Nov 20 at 18:13
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“I put you on my list of assholes (sic) to behead when this happens.” This list is long but patience, you will pass ”. These death threats were uttered on October 17, 2020 againstEric Fassin, professor within university Paris 8 at Saint-Denis (Seine-Saint-Denis), the day after the assassination of Samuel Paty.
Filing complaint
They followed his Twitter cover of an article he wrote for the blog of Mediapart in the aftermath of the attacks of 13 November 2015 entitled We can’t want what our enemies want.
We cannot want what our enemies want – neither the terrorists of today, nor the fascists who promise us terror tomorrow. pic.twitter.com/YdvvgE7Gh2
– Eric Fassin (@EricFassin) October 17, 2020
A complaint was filed with the judicial police. “On Twitter, I am regularly the victim of insults and sometimes threats, but I ignore them; this time, I couldn’t, because this threat came from an account with a name and a profile picture, ”explains the sociologist.
The account – since deleted – was in the name of Didier Magnien, a personality linked to neo-Nazism who now lives in Germany. “Just after the beheading of a colleague, the threat was particularly violent,” explains Eric Fassin.
Threats related to its work
The academic, who works on issues of discrimination, minorities and racialization policies, among other things, believes he is targeted because of his profession. Functional protection It was immediately granted by the University of Paris 8. “Symbolically, it’s very important. By granting me functional protection, the university recognizes that these threats are linked to my work ”.
The Department of Political Science also links threats to the researcher’s work. “The department of political science expresses its full solidarity with its colleague, Eric Fassin, victim of death threats because of his work on the various forms of inequalities and discrimination”, it was announced. in a press release.
But why does his work spark such an outburst of violence? “When we talk about separatism, we are pointing fingers at Arab or black anti-racist activists. But I am an anti-racist academic, and I am white, so it is difficult to accuse me of defending a line of identity. For the extreme right, and for all those who copy it, people like me, who do not have ‘the head of the job’, come to contradict their propaganda ”, analyzes Eric Fassin. “The attacks are primarily aimed at minorities, but their allies against racism are presented as traitors or collaborators: it is to overturn the vocabulary of the Second World War”, he adds.
“The neo-Nazis feel authorized to come out of the woods”
According to Eric Fassin, other teachers are also targeted by threats from far-right activists. “We are thinking about the possibility of bringing together the testimonies. It is a much larger problem than myself. The sociologist attributes the multiplication of threats to political discourse. “For some time now, the neo-Nazis have felt authorized to come out of the woods thanks to the speeches of our rulers accusing the so-called ‘Islamo-leftists’ of ‘intellectual complicity with terrorism'”.
An analysis taken up by his department. “Free intellectual speech is today called into question as much by the multiplication of direct threats from the far-right as by the measures and declarations of political authorities, yet supposed to protect teaching staff. For his part, Eric Fassin notes today that he has not received a word of support from the rectorate or the Ministry of Higher Education.
This is the second complaint filed by the university. In 2013, a first complaint was filed after the receipt of two anonymous letters at home, the second representing a Resistance leaflet with a gallows. Eric Fassin intends “not to change anything” in the way he works and expresses himself publicly. “Now the question is how to do not let anything go without wasting all your time, in other words, without it being to the detriment of my research and my commitments”, he concludes.
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