27 July 2026
Please consider signing this petition in support of medievalist, Julien Théry, who has been sacked by University Lumière Lyon 2 for supporting Palestine: https://framaforms.org/julien-thery-must-be-allowed-to-work-and-teach-again-revoke-his-punishment-supporting-palestine-is. For more details, see below.
Julien Théry must be allowed to work and teach again! Revoke his punishment: supporting Palestine is not a crime!
Julien Théry must be allowed to work and teach again! Revoke his punishment: supporting Palestine is not a crime!
Julien Théry, a Professor at the University Lumière Lyon 2 and a specialist in the history of the Middle Ages, has just been suspended from the university for 18 months, without pay. For what offences? For reposting a text critical of a pro-Israel opinion piece published in Le Figaro and calling for a boycott of the signatories; for consistently denouncing the exploitation of the (necessary) fight against anti-Semitism to justify the genocidal campaign against the Palestinians.
We are all only too familiar with the tactic of levelling the defamatory accusation of anti-Semitism against opponents of ethnic cleansing in Palestine and all critics of the State of Israel. For years now, this perverse tactic has been openly used to silence inconvenient voices.
The disciplinary action against Julien Théry was taken under overt pressure from a coordinated harassment campaign directed at the Head of the University of Lyon 2: the Head, along with other university officials, received the same intimidating email 200 times, sent by different individuals. This constituted a coordinated campaign of harassment and pressure. Above all, since April 2025 and the ‘Fabrice Balanche affair’, the University Lumière Lyon 2 has been subjected to unacceptable pressure from Laurent Wauquiez and Les Républicains, who govern the Rhône-Alpes Region. They are engaging in a completely illegal form of subsidy blackmail, claiming that the University Lumière Lyon 2 is riddled with ‘Islamo-leftism’.
How could an 18-month suspension of a lecturer be fair and impartial under such circumstances? Since when have universities been subject to the manoeuvres of politicians – both local and national – and those representing the interests of a foreign State?
Not only do those who denounce genocide not harm the University’s reputation, but on the contrary, they are humanity’s greatest defenders, at a time when we are bombarded with images showing the atrocities suffered not only by the atrocities suffered not only by the Palestinians, but also by the Lebanese.
Whilst we may hold different views on how to put an end to this massacre of entire peoples, the signatories of this text categorically reject the idea that anyone should be excluded from their professional life or slandered for seeking to denounce the unthinkable.
We therefore call for this suspension to be lifted, for Julien Théry to be allowed to return to his university and his students, and for an end to the restrictions on freedom of expression imposed on those who have the courage to speak out against the world’s best-documented genocide, which is taking place at this very moment. We will support all actions taken in this direction.
