Pierre Nicodème, a retired mathematician and computer scientist at the CNRS, is returning the CNRS Medal of Honor, which he received in 2013, in response to pressure from the Ministry of Higher Education on the IEP of Strasbourg to maintain its partnership with Reichman University in Herzliya, Israel. In an open letter we publish here, he expresses “disgust and anger” at the ministry’s political choices. It is also an occasion for him to offer a personal testimony as a committed intellectual on how France, over the past two decades (since Nicolas Sarkozy’s election in 2007), has completely abandoned any concern for justice and balance in its handling of the Palestinian issue.
To Philippe Baptiste, French Minister of Higher Education and Research
April 10, 2025
On November 4, 1995, was murdered in Jerusalem the Israeli first minister Yitzhak Rabin, as a consequence of a violent hatred campaign backed by Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahou, a campaign in which he was portrayed as a nazi and even as a SS.
On September 4, 1997, the Israeli philologist Nurit Peled and her husband Rams Elhanan lost their daughter Smadar Elhanan, killed in a Palestinian kamikaze attack
as she was 14. Nurit Peled-Elkanan forbade the Israeli officials, among them Netanyahou, to attend the funerals. She declared that she refused to give place to despair, but gave a speech about the responsibility of politics which refuses to acknowledge the rights of the other and promotes hate and conflicts.
(Translation in English from https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nurit_Peled-Elhanan)
At the end of 2001 the French Collective « Trop, c’est Trop » (Too much is Too much) was created as the follow up of an initiative of Madeleine Rebériou and Pierre Vidal-Naquet, with the goal of protesting against the confinement of Yasser Arafat at Ramallah and the blows inflicted by the Israeli army on the Palestinian Authority.
The first appeal of the Collective « Trop, c’est Trop », also signed by the historian Michelle Perrot, the film director Bernard Sobel and the mathematician Laurent Schwartz, published in December 2001 and January 2002 in Le Monde, raised protest against the fact that : « The Palestinians leaders, and first of all Yasser Arafat, who once shook Rabin’s Hand, are nowadays surrounded in Ramallah by Israelis tanks. Bombs hail down on the territory where part of the Palestinian people still lives. Nothing, we emphasize nothing – included the unacceptable kamikaze attacks – may justify such acts. The Palestinian people have the right to live in freedom. It has the right to a genuine State. » The Collective organized about this topic public meetings in Paris and published several editions of a bulletin to which contributed a number of public figures: in the first issue, André Mandouze linked his past commitments within Témoignage Chrétien in the Resistance against the nazism and its persecutions of Jews, then for the independence of Algeria, and his present backing of the rights of the Palestinians. Israelis opposing the settlement process like Amira Hass or Zeev Sternhell gave their point of view and a meeting with Stéphane Hessel and Jean Lacouture was scheduled.
I agreed with this appeal, and I saw among the signatures the one of the mathematician Laurent Schwartz whose lectures I attended at the Ecole polytechnique in 1967-1968. I noticed in the text a reference to the French Human Rights Association LDH (Ligue des Droits de l’Homme) and I sent money for support while adding that I wanted to join the Collective in the start. Madeleine Rebérioux, former president of the LDH, founded the Collective separately from the LDH, since this organization failed to reach a clear position with regard to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, fearing the accusation of antisemitism. I took an active part in the actions of the Collective, bulletin, and public meetings. Members of the Collective included Stéphane Hessel, Etienne Balibar, or the historian Gilles Manceron.
(See https://www.trop-cest-trop.fr).
In 2004, I participated in a political trip in Israel and Palestine organized by FFIPP (Faculty For Israeli Palestinian Peace), an organization founded by Eyad El Sarraj, a psychiatrist of Gaza, and the Californian mathematician Arnon Hadar. During this trip, I briefly met Eyad El Sarraj in Jerusalem, who told me: « I am going back to Gaza, to hell ! ».
In 2007, as part of the BDS campaign (Boycott-Desinvestment-Solidarity), I wrote to Patrick Kron, CEO of Alstom, to denounce the participation of this company to the construction of the Tramway of Jerusalem who would cross Palestinian land, in violation of International Law. I sent copies to the local sections of the French Trade Unions FO, CGT and CFDT, to the heads of these Trade Unions as well, and to Stéphane Hessel. A few days later, Stéphane Hessel noticed that I was on the end reading of the autobiographic book of Marcel Reich-Ranicki « Mein Leben », one of the very few survivors of the Warsaw ghetto, and he told me, « Pierre Nicodème is a nice guy! »
Around 2015, noting that the Collective « Trop, c’est Trop » proposed as the only solution of the conflict the two-states solution, while I considered this solution no longer possible, and meanwhile hypocritically endorsed by Western governments who refused the slightest pressure upon Israel to reach this goal, I left the Collective « Trop, c’est Trop ». Nowadays I am convinced, like the courageous European Deputy Rima Hassan, whose human and intellectual qualities I admire, that only the establishment of a democratic and secular state covering the territory of the Mandatory Palestine and the implementation of the right of return of the Palestinian refugees can lead to a lasting peace.
The attack of October 7, 2023, during which Hamas and other groups of Gaza rose up against the oppression of their people by the Israelis, lead to a huge disinformation campaign organized by the Israeli government and army, such as « disembowelled women » or « babies put in oven »; false claims spread by Western medias and never later retracted. Alain Gresh in his recent book « Palestine » exposes the mechanisms behind these falsehoods, in particular those related to October 7, during which extremely grave crimes were committed and taken out of context.
In 2018, Israel enacted the ‘Jewish nation-state law’ which transformed a shameful apartheid into a ‘legal’ one. Since October 7 2023, it has been waving a genocidal war against the population of Gaza, with active or passive support of most of the Western states, a complete moral and political collapse of these states. Netanyahou and the Israeli government claim to be conducting their criminal politics on behalf of Jews living everywhere in the world, equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Emmanuel Macron echoed this deceitful and odious rhetoric, while as soon as 1948 Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein warned about the inevitable evolution of the state of Israel to a state of violent oppression.
A law is presently being considered in the French Parliament which concerns the fight against antisemitism in the universities. The preliminary document has been initialized by the UEJF (Union des Etudiants Juifs Francais) and the LICRA (Ligue Internationale contre le Racisme et l’Antisémitisme), two organizations which, like the minister Aurore Bergé, are unconditional supporters of Netanyahou and of the Israeli government. You took part with Aurore Bergé to the preparation of this law in the French Senate. Alain Lipietz, former European Deputy, denounced it as a ‘loi scélérate’ which, under cover of fighting antisemitism, aims to further restrict freedom of opinion and speech.
In 2013, you allowed me to receive the CNRS Honor medal with regards to my commitment to the rights of the Palestinians. It was awarded to me in the laboratory LIPN of University Paris 13 (now Paris-Sorbonne Nord) by Jean Mairesse, during the scientific event devoted to my retirement, on behalf of the CNRS Directorate.
Recently, Emmanuel Macron claimed to care about the fate of the Palestinians by showing up at the south border of Gaza, following the killing of several members of a Palestinian Medical convoy and a especially despicable lie of the Israeli army about the matter. Meanwhile, the crackdown on supporters of the Palestinians continues in France and Europe. Recently, a committee of the University of Strasbourg unanimously called for ending the partnership of this university with University Reichman of Herzliya, an accomplice of Israeli crimes; you then threatened the university of Strasbourg with legal action if the partnership is broken, siding with the perpetrators of the crime.
Disgust and anger fill me when I consider French politics towards Israel and Palestine since 2007 and the Presidency of Nicolas Sarkozy, and also fill me when I consider yours. Since the CNRS Honor Medal is now associated with a Ministry complicit in genocide, I return it to you.
Pierre Nicodeme, former CNRS researcher, was awarded the CNRS Honor Medal at time of his official retirement in 2013