PARIS CORRESPONDENT CLAIRE BERLINSKI REPORTS on the Israeli boycott effort’s inglorious end:
The debate on the motion to recommend the rupture of the European Union’s scientific cooperation agreements with Israel was scheduled to take place at the University of Paris VII this afternoon, but when I called to find out how the issue had been resolved, I was told that the president of the university, Benoît Eurin, had declared the motion to be incompatible with the University’s charter.
The university issued a press release a few moments ago (Link): The communiqué begins by mentioning that the university will be taking its obligation to remove asbestos from its buildings before January 2005 very, very seriously. As an afterthought, the University’s board of directors observe that judgments on the suspension of scientific exchanges with Israeli universities are outside the institution’s realm of competence, and, in compliance with Article 3 of the January 26,1984 Law on Higher Education, the board was in favor of reinforcing Paris VII’s scientific cooperation agreements with all the universities of the world. The motion was passed with 39 in favor, six against, and an abstention. (Readers will be relieved to know that the asbestos resolution was adopted with 41 votes and four abstentions: a principled stand of which the French Academy can be proud.)
It’s a very French solution to the problem of how best to deal with nitwits, and reminiscent of the Oriana Fallaci case, in which the French courts declined to take a stand on the essential problem — whether the French courts should be in the business of banning books — and instead dismissed the suit against Fallaci on purely procedural grounds. These procedural evasions get the job done, I suppose, but without much glory. Not a bad description of France political life in general, really.
Incidentally, when I called this morning to ask whether I might be permitted to watch the proceedings, I was told, categorically, that the debate was closed to the public. When I asked why, I was told by the secretary to the president that it was because the whole business was “just too disgusting.”
No argument there. And, you know, I’m getting some pretty good reporting out of the Paris Bureau this week. Especially considering what I pay them. . . .
On the other hand, they get the same salary that I do!