The Collège de France surprised us a few months ago when one of its eminent professors stormed against the publication by the Presses Universitaires de France (PUF) of a work[1] which denounced the excesses of woke ideology. Fortunately, PUF, being a private company, maintained (after reflection) the publication of the book, and the gesticulations of this professor will have served no purpose, except to sell the book in question. I wondered: and if PUF were as in the past linked to the academic world, would it have succeeded in prohibiting the publication of this book, like the censors in the good old days of the imprimatur?
The Collège de France surprises us again today, first with the title of one of its chairs: "Sustainable Common Future." Certainly, sustainable development is a key objective for the coming decades, but I would like someone to tell me how the common future is taught, whether or not it is sustainable! I eagerly await the creation of chairs in Gender Studies, Race Studies, Body Studies, and other passing fancies of academics in search of post-postmodernity. A second surprise comes from the fact that the Collège de France signed, a few years ago, a contract with a multinational energy company, TotalEnergies, some of whose objectives are indeed the development of less polluting energy sources than coal or oil, but whose other objectives are to produce (and especially to sell) other, less "ecological" energy resources.
The École Polytechnique also signed a contract with TotalEnergies, in complete secrecy. Libération recounted the fight that a student association is waging against the school's management to obtain disclosure of these contracts[2] ; they won before the administrative court but the management took the case to the Council of State… Could there be something to hide? And this is where the third surprise appears: there is a (secret) non-disparagement clause in this type of partnership. This clause stipulates that the Collège de France " must refrain from any communication likely to “damage the image or reputation” of TotalEnergies " in exchange for a grant of two million euros[3]. On the one hand, there is an attack on academic freedom. l'ensemble teachers from the Collège de France[4], and on the other hand unacceptable institutional corruption. I reproduce below the words of a colleague: " The subordination of higher education to the interests of companies practicing “patronage” can have ideological repercussions, around very diverse issues – through non-denigration clauses of sponsoring companies ».
It is therefore forbidden for all teachers at the Collège de France and their colleagues (does this also apply to students?) to say, for example, that they strongly suspect TotalEnergies of hypocrisy, whose right hand seems to ignore what the left hand is doing? Indeed, during the multinational's general meeting in May, its directors explained that they "assume" increasing their hydrocarbon production by 3% [in 2025]. [5]This goes against the scientific recommendations of the IPCC and the International Energy Agency (IEA). François-Marie Bréon, holder of this chair, nobly declared that he can " say all the bad things he wants about Total ", before specifying " not intend to do so, because [he has] no reason to [express] himself on it " while he is one of the pillars of the IPCC. He has the right to do so, but he doesn't want to exercise it, in short... Perhaps he should be reminded that academic freedom only wears out if it is not used!
