investigation into this slippage which embarrasses Unef – L’Express

“The author of this visual was not aware of its anti-Semitic nature. As soon as the national office and the local section were notified, the message was directly removed from all social networks,” insists Hania Hamidi, general secretary of the National Union of Students of France, which pleads “error” and denies any ideological slippage. The “error” in question? An anti-Semitic montage by Benjamin Netanyahu.

At the beginning of January, Unef Lorraine published a message on the X network calling for a “mobilization against the Palestinian genocide” planned for January 10, 2025, Place Maginot in Nancy. The image accompanying the text depicts Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu with pointy ears and a head adorned with horns. The historical reference stands out to several Internet users who accuse the Unef of conveying anti-Semitic stereotypes. The reactions are all the more strong as, since the events of October 7, 2023, intimidation or threats against the Jewish community have increased in faculties. Last April, France Universités, invited by the Senate to testify as part of a mission on the subject, counted 67 anti-Semitic acts in higher education establishments between October 2023 and March 2024, compared to 33 over the entire academic year 2022- 2023.

“This visual from Unef, the latest example, clearly shows the extent to which these ideas permeate universities and society in general. How can we explain that no one was shocked and worked upstream to prevent their broadcast?” asks Yossef Murciano, the president of the Union of Jewish Students of France. Contacted by L’Express, Gautier Dardenne, secretary general of Unef Lorraine, affirms that it would be an individual initiative taken by their new communications manager. “This comrade used artificial intelligence to create this caricature which aimed to denounce the actions of Netanyahu’s government in Palestine. Newly formed, the latter did not see fit to send it to us for validation like that is generally done”, explains the activist, affirming that internal training intended to better fight against all forms of racism and anti-Semitism will be strengthened. In their defense, the members of Unef Lorraine also claim to have already, in the past, adorned other personalities with horns such as the former Prime Minister Michel Barnier or the president of the University of Lorraine, Hélène Boulanger, without that no one finds anything wrong with it.

“Reprehensible ancestral symbols”

“The press cartoon is intended to refer to news that we understand at a glance. Which is not the case with this caricature of Netanyahu which is based solely on reprehensible ancestral symbols,” insists Yossef Murciano. Noëlle Lenoir, lawyer and former member of the Constitutional Council, says she “is not the only one to have been shocked by this filthy image”. “Demonology, an approach which consists of representing Jews with goat horns or beards, dates back to the Middle Ages. The latter were demonized and considered to be responsible for plague epidemics,” recalls the jurist. These anti-Semitic caricatures resurfaced during the interwar period. Could the Unef officials in question ignore these dark episodes in History? “I don’t believe in their naivety or in their explanations a posteriori. They know very well what they are doing. We are still dealing with students and not with kindergarten students!”, protests Noëlle Lenoir for whom this affair is symptomatic of a drift of the Unef “which has become the antechamber of an anti-Semitic far left”: “I understand that politicians seek to seduce their electorate but here, frankly, it goes too far far”.

Learning that some of his final year students had participated in this pro-Palestinian demonstration, Pascal Zachary, associate professor of history and geography in a renowned high school in downtown Nancy, deemed it useful to discuss this controversy in class a few days later. late, on January 15th. “I compared an anti-Semitic Dutch poster dated 1940, promoting the Nazi film ‘The Eternal Jew’, and this famous Unef visual which strangely seems to be inspired by it in order to deconstruct these stereotypes,” explains the teacher. “I could have gone back to the medieval period but the evocation of Nazism, which represents the incarnation of absolute evil for my students, seemed much more effective to me. We had very interesting exchanges, the message got across well “, says Pascal Zachary.

At the start of the course, the latter had taken care to survey his students, many of whom had a political culture: None of them had noted the anti-Semitic nature of the Unef’s image at first glance. “Which clearly shows that the subject of anti-Semitism is not sufficiently addressed as such in school curricula. And that, on the other hand, we would benefit from favoring an active pedagogy to better arm our students in the face of the dangers disinformation on social networks However, we often only do this in reaction to news due to lack of time”, explains the teacher for whom the veracity of the Unef’s defense strategy, pleading ignorance, is not not to be excluded.

According to the prefecture of Meurthe-et-Moselle, the pro-Palestinian demonstration on January 10 in Nancy attracted some 150 participants. “We are far from the figures recorded last March. No doubt because we are starting to see a ceasefire, the possibility of a truce and peace in the Middle East,” explains Yossef Murciano. However, according to him, “History shows that when a movement runs out of steam, a certain race towards radicalism is expressed among certain activists”. “Which could explain this new anti-Semitic slippage,” continues the president of the UEJF who deplores the absence of any public and official communication from the Unef on this affair. “For us the best response was to delete the message,” replies Hania Hamidi. To see if this will be enough to put an end to the controversy.