Veiled Student Faces Mockery and Discrimination at University of Lyon, Sparking Outrage

Discrimination, intimidation and humiliation are still rampant at the University of Lyon 3. One event too many took place on April 4th. "A student amused himself by putting a veil around his face to mock, to imitate veiled women. This led to laughter, to the point that the professor asked what was happening. A student from our class who wears the veil left crying while I was explaining to the professor what had happened and what has been happening for months," recounts a second-year history student at Lyon 3.

"For us, it’s dramatic: this young girl left in the middle of a class in front of the whole class after being humiliated. We are not denouncing an extreme right-wing network within Lyon 3, it’s just that for us, the limit of freedom of thought is when a student has to miss an hour of class because she feels humiliated by others. [...] They justify all this in a tone of black humor. We discussed with them: for them, we would be victims in the soul," she continues.

The Cocarde Lyon, an extreme right-wing student union whose members would be the perpetrators of discrimination, intimidation and humiliation, reacts: "We refuse to be stigmatized, harassed, attacked simply because we are proud to carry the ideas of the defense of the triple-identity, the fight against liberalism, against Islamization [...]. We refuse to be prevented from succeeding in our studies by this extreme-left scum (sic)".

"We denounce a problem of students, who are a minority, but of whom we are increasingly concerned. This is not a power struggle between two militant entities that would confront each other in class. This kind of behavior should not be allowed in the public space. Racism is not an opinion. There are acts that have hurt," adds the second-year history student at Lyon 3, stressing that a student should not have to spend so much of his time fighting this racism.

In order to contribute to the fight against all kinds of discrimination, the National Union of French Students (Unef) is conducting a campaign against the impunity of certain students so that "the administration reacts quickly". It also intends to refer the matter to the public prosecutor and bring these students before a disciplinary council. "We demand that the reception and listening cell organize physical offices, essential for victims and witnesses to be supported in these situations that can be traumatic for them to allow them to resume their studies beyond these humiliations from the extreme right militants," said Manon Moret, general secretary of UNEF Lyon.