In this light, I wanted to translate a current call for a General Assembly next week at my field site in Paris-8. It goes like this:

“We have even more cause than last year to be angry and to keep fighting.”

This declaration was placed at the start of the communiqué of the National University Coordinating Committee*, which met at Paris-8 on September 30. It perfectly summarizes the feelings of everyone who was there — the representatives of 29 establishments of higher learning and research. We all know that it’s not possible to have a strike comparable to the one we had last semester; we all know that there’s no single form of action that alone would manage to make the government give in; but we all know as well that doing nothing would end up giving the government free reign to impose the worst on us.

For we must not have the slightest illusion on this point: the passage to complete university “autonomy” will wind up threatening the status of ALL workers in higher education. A small cast of mandarins and their lackeys aside, this reform will, before the end of this coming decade, force us all to have to defend our jobs in terms of criteria that the government will wholly determine.

—Autonomous to manage our own fiscal destitution,
—Autonomous to inflict the costs on the students and raise their tuition,
—Autonomous to spread precarious working conditions throughout the educational system,
—Autonomous to impose permanent competition between ourselves.

Last semester’s strike led the government to slow down in its destruction of the public service. But let’s not get this wrong: if we let down our guard, our universities will soon become service stations working under contracts with the State. The State will then retain for itself the autonomy that we claim for ourselves: that is, the autonomy to set scientific programs and pedagogical methods. And given the way the minister acts towards our university today, as in the case of the IFU, we can genuinely fear the worst.

To take our bearings as this year begins under the LRU,
To examine together the ways we might affirm our resistance to this law,
To agree on a common position on our refusal to submit the maquettes [newly mandated course descriptions],
To affirm our full solidarity with all types of university workers, whose jobs are becoming more and more precarious,
To build a real convergence of struggles between students and workers,

We call you to a general assembly Tuesday, October 13, at 12:30 in Lecture Hall Y.

* The French is Coordination Nationale des Universités; I’ve translated coordination as coordinating committee even though it’s more like a periodic meeting of representatives from other groups than an independent standing committee, as far as I know right now. A better translation in American activist jargon might be “spokescouncil,” but I don’t think every anglophone reader would recognize that term.

I’m translating this partly just to give a sense of one current political discourse at Paris-8 for a foreign audience, but also because it gives a great example of a political logic that advocates unstinting commitment in the face of undeniable tactical difficulty, even failure. It calls for even more anger than ever, says that there is even more reason to fight than ever, and yet admits that the massive actions of last spring are unrepeatable. Its justification for continued struggle is not practical in the sense of expecting to win everything it wants; rather, it argues simply that the alternative to continued struggle would be total capitulation. Which is a political logic of “bad or worse” that has frequently cropped up in recent American politics and would seem to demand analysis of its own, as a political form.

I guess there are a couple of competing rhetorical logics at work here: call them a logic of political feeling (we can’t just give in, we can’t let down our guard, we can’t let the worst happen, we have to maintain our anger, keep feeling tense, keep feeling involved at all, join together, keep sharpening our fear of what could come)
but there’s also something like a purely tactical analysis of the situation, an enumeration of institutional antecedents and their causal consequences. If you don’t resist, then your job might get cut according to rules you won’t have any say in. If we look at what the government has done to the IFU, then we can predict that similar bad things will happen again. (I have to ask someone what this last case actually refers to, but for now my best guess is that it refers to the recent transfer of the Institut Français d’Urbanisme away from Paris 8 to another campus.) There’s an analysis of political mechanics to complement the appeal to political sentiment.

The peculiar logic of this call, however, is to say in effect that even though last spring’s mass struggle didn’t work, we still need to try all the harder — but probably with less collective energy and resources than before. I’m not pretending to have any political opinions of my own about French universities at this early point. But there’s something odd, or maybe just a trifle grim, about this logic of advocating increased political commitment as circumstances, for university activists like these, seem to darken. Still, on the other hand, political commitments here can be serious and seemingly pretty durable. Pécresse, for one, has stuck to her guns; perhaps it would be surprising if her opposition didn’t do the same.

“It takes a strong stomach to oppose the strikers”

Aristote Toussaint, 21 years old, master’s degree in business law at Bordeaux IV.

In student movements, when like me you’re in the opposition, you have an interest in keeping your mouth shut. Or you need to have a strong stomach! At the Nantes fac, where I was last year, I was threatened for my comments in the General Assembly [AG]. I couldn’t go to class by myself. I didn’t hide that I was a member of the UMP [Sarkozy’s center-right party], and then? I’m proud of my convictions. The strikers [bloqueurs] are disrespectful people, they call themselves defenders of democracy but they’re anything but democrats. They’re utopians, allergic to work. I’d like to think that the leaders act in the name of some real ideology, but most people are just following the movement. The ones who criticize the autonomy of universities [recently imposed by the Education Ministry] are the same ones who complain about not getting jobs when they graduate… In the end their action accomplished nothing, aside from a few weeks of vacation. For the time being, it’s rather calm in Bordeaux, and I sincerely hope that there won’t be any strikes this year. We have to be optimistic and continue to reform [the universities], whatever it costs.

A few thoughts on this: Toussaint’s sense of disgust and contempt for the protesters is fairly palpable. Interestingly, it’s hard to sort out the political disagreement here from what we could call his defense of the individual and his dislike of what he views as an irrational, slavish political crowd. In other words,  Toussaint seems above all to dislike the sense that his political opponents (a) are intolerant of his dissent (to the point of personal threats, he says); (b) are therefore betraying the ideals they claim to stand for; (c) and worse yet, don’t appear to truly hold any ideals, but mostly just “follow” what the rest of the movement is doing. Shades of Gustave Le Bon! Usually viewed as the central figure in the late-19th-century French right-wing critique of the masses, Le Bon wrote that “crowds are not to be influenced by reasoning, and can only comprehend rough-and-ready associations of ideas.”

Curiously enough, though, Toussaint seems to complain not only that strikers are irrational but also that they have, in a sense, too many ideas. Calling them “utopians” (utopistes), he says they dislike work even as they complain of not getting jobs. (Though this seems like a contradiction to Toussaint, I think this is quite a common attitude among working people. “I need my job to live, but I don’t have to like it.” Et cetera.) Anyway, a utopian, surely, is nothing if not in the grip of a strong idea, is nothing if not known for an uncompromising refusal of the established pragmatic protocols of daily life. Toussaint’s critique thus appears not only to valorize the dissenting individual over the mindless collective herd, but also to critique the useless utopianism of work-refusal in the name of something like a procedural democracy where dissenters would have fair rights to their opinions. (But would still accept the basic outlines of the status quo.) Although Toussaint doesn’t put it this way, I see him making a critique of political utopianism in the name of something like democratic liberalism.

It strikes me as unsurprising that this critique would come from a law student. Law students seem to be known for debating, and are socialized to respect the established rules of procedure and grievance. Not to mention that law students, according to one of the other interviews here, currently have good job placement in France and therefore are probably more likely to be contemptuous of those who fail to get jobs. (A job after all can be a major status symbol for those who have them.) It’s worth noting that some of the protest against the university reform law in question did come from conservative law professors; but still, this resistance from a law student is sociologically unsurprising.

What to me is more interesting is the phenomenology of protest from the point of view of the minority opposition. It sounds like this guy was upset. Maybe frightened. Proud of his opposition. Viscerally opposed to his opponents. I don’t know if this is a common reaction, but it would be interesting to find out. And his complaint that ostensibly pro-democracy movements are actually undemocratic in their internal workings seems like something worth knowing much more about. It wouldn’t be the first time.

One day a few weeks ago I stopped by a political demonstration against the French university reforms. The organizing group, La Ronde Infinie des Obstinés, specializes in what are essentially indefinitely long circular marches, rather after the pattern of a vigil. Their name amounts to “the infinite rounds of the stubborn,” though someone tried to explain that une ronde infinie could also be interpreted as a merry-go-round! At any rate, the idea is that by marching nonstop they can manifest their “infinite” determination and commitment to the cause. But what cause, you ask? Well, for those anglophone readers out there, I thought I would give a rough translation of their pamphlet (French original here). As you’ll see, on this occasion they were trying to persuade French candidates for the European Parliament to take a stand on university reforms.

100 hours to make teaching and research into a campaign debate

“It’s more than time…”

Four months of strikes, of protests, of occupations, of infinite rounds of the stubborn. We, who make, think and dream the university, we, teachers, researchers, staff and students, affirm that the current reforms striking the university are part and parcel of a real political will, one in full submission to the economic field.

Four months we’ve faced an enterprise of propaganda, an enterprise of governmental denigration of the men and women who make the university live.

Four months in which the movement against the consequences of the LRU has grown stronger, because we understand today the deep vices and mortal dangers with which it threatens the university: all-powerful presidency, business-like management, marginalization of scholarly criteria in decisionmaking, generalized precarization of the staff, explosion of the price of tuition. This law will produce in France what it has produced wherever these principles are put to work: arbitrary management of careers and research groups, dependence on private money, walling-off of knowledges, destruction of whole teaching sectors, growing social injustice.

At once authoritarian in its implementation, bureaucratic in its principles, and liberticide for the university world, this law “Liberties and responsibilities of the universities” (LRU) is only a French caricature of a European process.

In effect, the European university system is affronted today by a transformation and reforming that is the academic side of the submission of the whole of society to the “invisible hand of the market.” The promoters of this society and their national craftsmen have associated this destruction with the names of two of the oldest European universities, those of the Sorbonne (declaration of 1998) and of Bologna (declaration of 1999).

But the “Bologna Process,” which is at the heart of European university politics, has never been publicly discussed. Its inscription in the Lisbon Strategy (2000) destroys the university as a place where enlightened and thinking citizens are formed; it means foreclosing on the values of elaboration and transmission of knowledge on which European universities should rest. In appearing to valorize the university’s missions, it negates them. It aims to apply to the university world rules that can never be applied to it.

It is thus time to affirm that the Bologna Process and the Lisbon Strategy have the function of introducing into the universities a generalized competition put under the auspices of economic profitability.

It is time to affirm that the notion of “employability” is no more than a tool for destroying the humanistic knowledges that are at the heart of our civilization.

It is time to affirm that the notion of the “knowledge economy” conceals the transformation of knowledge into an economic good.

It is time to affirm that the slogan of “adapting the university to society” doesn’t say that this society is reduced to purely economic ends.

Today, we affirm that the adaptation of the European university doesn’t necessarily entail a reductive utilitarian obsession with the employability of its graduates. We refuse the application of this market logic to the university, this logic which reduces the rational to the useful and calculates utility in terms of profit. The university is not the place of a pure utilitarianism calculated in exclusively economic terms. The acquisition and invention of knowledge is a right for all and cannot be limited. Knowledge, creation and research are not commodities, but are the good of all: they are not for sale.

We demand from the future members of the European parliament a clear formulation of their vision of the university of tomorrow. We require that they take up the fundamental subject of the education of future generations of free and enlightened citizens, that they pose the problem of the university and of research, of education and formation as a major theme of the European campaign, that they publically accept or forcefully reject the complete submission of the university, of research, of the education system to market logic and to purely economic interests. We demand that they affirm with complete certainty that education is a public good, and that they draw out all the necessary consequences.

We are stubborn and our vigilance, infinite.

This should give you a flavor of the arguments against the current university reforms (which have been ongoing now for years, actually). And I quite like the poetic structure of this document. Of course, if one were to evaluate the results in purely utilitarian terms, as it seems to demand not to be evaluated, it probably wouldn’t count as a total victory — the recent elections were a major loss for left-wing parties and a gain for the UMP, which, of course, is the party that has implemented the university reforms that the Ronde is protesting. But people I talked to at the time were happy to see that five political parties had sent responses to queries about university policy. Just getting a political response already is a success for a relatively small group like this one, I’m sure.

And all month I’ve been asking people: where do they find political hope after months of politically fruitless protests and demonstrations? Stubbornness, in this light, becomes a rather interesting and strategic political emotion, a way of refusing despair and refusing defeat and a way of deferring the end of a struggle until the desired results have been obtained.

(Thanks to Jean-Claude for the photo of the Ronde.)

«La loi attaque la fonction publique», s’indigne Noël Bernard, maître de conférence en mathématique à l’université de Savoie, à Chambéry, et membre du Snesup-FSU, premier syndicat du supérieur. Il dénonce «le recrutement massif de contractuels», «l’autoritarisme instauré pour le président d’université et son cénacle», «les équipes qui seront pieds et poing liés aux bayeurs de fond privés».

“The law attacks the public function,” exclaimed Noël Bernard, a master of conferences in mathematics at the university of Savoie, in Chambéry, and a member of Snesup-FSU, premier union for higher education. He denounced “the massive hiring of contract workers,” “the institutionalized authoritarianism for the university president and his circle,” “the research groups that will be bound hand and foot to those who lust for private funds.”

The teachers have their own group, “Sauvons l’université” (Save the university), with its own call for action.

They explain, “Nous y défendrons une conception de la production et de la transmission du savoir qui ne peut être réduite à la vision étroite et utilitariste imposée par le gouvernement.” (We defend a conception of knowledge production and transmission that cannot be reduced to the narrow and utilitarian [instrumentalist?] vision imposed by the government.) They title their proposal, “University presidents don’t speak in our name: For a collegial university.” The Loi Pécresse amounts to a warrant for a “hyperpresidency” that could become a “form of despotism.” And they conclude:

La collégialité dans la vie et le gouvernement de l’université constitue, et a toujours constitué, le socle de l’institution universitaire : la préserver n’est pas une option mais la garantie d’un enseignement et d’une recherche libres, comme cela est le cas dans les meilleures universités du monde.

Collegiality in the life and government of the university constitutes, and always has constituted, the foundation of the academic institution: to preserve it is not an option, but the guarantee of free teaching and research, as is the case in the best universities in the world.

They don’t specify, really, what they mean by collegiality, except to lament their lack of “voice” in university reforms. Does it mean a relationship of equality and peership among academics? Does it mean a kind of cordial solidarity? Sometimes in the U.S., it’s taken to mean a kind of professional kindliness, an impersonal intimacy, a durable, reciprocal obligation to one’s colleagues, and so on. In this context, though, it’s striking that collegiality is explicitly linked it to academic freedom. In the U.S. context, as far as I’ve seen, this connection is seldom made: we often construe academic freedom as license to be politically controversial, as license to disagree, rather than as a feature of our professional relations as such. Here, on the other hand, academic freedom seems more a matter of democratic decision-making than of freedom of speech, more a matter of governance than of license to be disagreeable.

A similar kind of complaint is expressed by another group, “Sauvons la recherche” (Save research!). They say that the government has ignored the advice of the scientific community and instead proposed a false autonomy for universities which really amounts to a subjugation to political pressures. (One particularly interesting claim is that long-term research will be diminished and only short-term research will get private funds.) They propose (unsurprisingly) more autonomy and a revised system of budgeting. I’ve noticed an interesting rhetorical moment in all this: an appeal to the global system of universities is often used to legitimate national French educational politics. In Sauvons L’université, this took the form of a comparison to the “best universities in the world”; in Sauvons la recherche, they begin their petition by citing the president of Harvard:

L’enseignement et la connaissance sont importants parce qu’ils définissent ce qui, à travers les siècles, a fait de nous des humains, et non parce qu’ils peuvent améliorer notre compétitivité mondiale”, ainsi s’exprimait récemment D. Faust, présidente de l’université de Harvard.

“Knowledge and teaching are important because they define what, over the centuries, has made us human, and not because they improve our global competitiveness,” as D. Faust, president of Harvard University, recently put it.

It would seem that they must be quoting this speech, though the quoted passage doesn’t exist in the original text in the same form. But in any event, it’s odd that the pathway to French academic reform passes through through the rhetoric of Harvard.

1. State disengagement. The law mandates that universities manage their own budgets (a major innovation in the French context); it increases the power of the university president and diminishes the power of currently-existing administrative councils. Students fear that this is just an excuse for the state to abandon universities to their own devices, decreasing state funding for higher education.
2. More social selection. The law mandates “l’orientation active,” which is defined as “aider le lycéen à faire un choix d’orientation éclairé,” i.e. helping the lyceén to make an enlightened choice of their program of study. Students view this as a process of “sélection,” which corresponds loosely to what in American universities is called “selectivity,” that is, the screening process by which some students are chosen over others. And they view this as a disavowed means of reproducing social inequality. (See also a longer analysis of social selection at café pédagogique.)
3. Increased registration fees. Official statements to the contrary, students say it’s obvious that in the absence of state funding, universities will look to their students for financial resources.
4. Closing of fields of study. The law says nothing about this, but the worry is that universities will be inclined to get rid of un-profitable fields. Interestingly, it seems to be students in human sciences and languages who are the most worried about the law in general. Also, Libération comments that:
   

   Derrière cette crainte, il y a aussi le refus de la professionnalisation des filières, des licences pros trop liées aux besoins du marché, et la volonté de défendre une université lieu de transmission du savoir.

   Behind this fear, there’s also a refusal of the professionalization of academic fields, of professional degrees too closely linked to the needs of the market, and the will to defend a university as a place of knowledge transmission.

   The whole problem of the university’s general societal role comes up here, and of its dependence on, or partial autonomy from, its economic circumstances. Even in the U.S., there are periodic conflicts over whether college education should be directly vocationally oriented. It’s remarkable that French students, not just professors (whose self-interest is obvious in this context), would defend the right to an economically irrelevant field like philosophy.

5. The two-speed university. According to the law, each campus will be treated equally. Students suspect, however, that there will be increasing differentiation between major Parisian research universities and small provincial teaching campuses.

Last month, some visiting French anthropologists suggested that I look into the workings of the Pécresse law as it takes effect. Along these lines, I’m tempted to think of this Libération article as a set of five empirical hypotheses whose truth will emerge over the coming years.

A broad spectrum of feelings is apparent in the comments on the article. One says:

au fond ceux qui manifestent ne sont-ils pas en plein desarroi? on leur a fait croire que l ‘université était accessible à tous, tout le monde pouvait être docteur, chercheur ……. et non même à la fac il y a un filtre( à la sortie) il vaut mieux faire des etudes modestes et respectables, que de “longues études” qui ne menent à rien! je suis d ‘accord dès que le privé sera dans l ‘université alors celles-ci brilleront davantage comme à l ‘etranger c ‘est vrai mais attention la fac n ‘est pas faite pour tout le monde! il faut l ‘accepter et accepter ses limites. (on voit même des bac pro s’inscrire en medecine sic!, en science!) l echec est programmé non?

Which means roughly:

at heart, aren’t those who protest in total confusion? they were led to believe that the university was accessible to all, everyone could be doctor, researcher…. and that even at the fac there wasn’t a filter (at the exit). it’s better to do modest and respectable studies, than “long studies” leading to nothing! i agree since the private [sector] will be in the university, they’ll shine like they do abroad, it’s true. but pay attention, the fac isn’t made for everybody! you have to accept it and accept its limits. (one even sees vocational high school students enrolling in medicine, in science!) failure is planned, no?

It’s a very conservative pragmatism to argue that “the fac isn’t made for everybody,” but I think it’s an interesting claim that failure is planned. There’s more to look into when it comes to planned failure and disappointment in academic institutions.

EXIGEONS L’ARRET DES POURSUITES !

Vous êtes tous au courant : les facs vont bientôt se mettre en grève contre la loi Pécresse et la privatisation des universités. A Paris 8 aussi évidemment : la privatisation devrait aboutir d’ici quelques années à la fermeture d’une bonne partie des facs non rentables, à commencer donc par Paris 8, « la fac du 93 ». Même les profs vont faire grève : ils n’ont pas trop le choix s’ils veulent pas se retrouver au chômage.

La privatisation ça commence par le retour à l’ordre. A Paris 8, c’est déjà fait : vigiles, caméras, et conseils de discipline. Vendredi 26 octobre c’est au tour d’une étudiante en philo de comparaître devant la section disciplinaire de l’université. Que lui reproche-t-on ? D’avoir protesté contre le fonctionnement bureaucratique du service des inscriptions. Le service des inscriptions, vous vous souvenez ? Le bureau où vous avez failli pété un câble après avoir fait la queue pendant trois heures ?

Il va de soi que la loi Pécresse ne passera pas, comme les autres provocations du même type que la droite avait tenté en 1976, 1986, 1994, et 2006. Mais au-delà de la loi Pécresse, il est clair que la marchandisation des universités a commencé depuis longtemps, sous la droite comme sous la gauche. En témoignent les hausses régulières de frais d’inscription, l’augmentation de la sélection, la présence de patrons dans les conseils d’administration, et la création de diplômes d’entreprise.

Au-delà de la loi Pécresse, c’est ce processus qu’il faut combattre au niveau local : la marchandisation, et le flicage qui va de pair. Pas de supermarchés sans vigiles, pas de flics sans patrons ! Que ce patron s’appelle « l’Etat » ou « Coca-Cola ».

C’est dans cette perspective qu’il faut combattre les conseils de discipline, pour ce qu’ils sont : le bras répressif de la bourgeoisie dans les universités. C’est dans cette perspective qu’il faut défendre tous les étudiants qui passent en conseil de discipline, que ce soit pour fraude aux examens ou pour s’être révolté. Parce que la lutte contre le capitalisme, ça commence par la résistance contre le travail. Parce qu’à l’université, la fraude aux examens est la première forme de résistance à la sélection sociale ! Contre l’université policière, luttons pour l’abolition des conseils de discipline !

Roughly translated:

We need an end to the persecutions!

You’re all up to date: the facs are about to go on strike against the Pécresse law and the privatization of the universities. At Paris 8 it’s already obvious: in a matter of years, privatization will lead to the closing of a large part of the unprofitable facs, starting with Paris 8, “the fac of 93.” Even the profs will go on strike: they will have no choice if they don’t want to be out of work.

Privatization begins with the return to order. At Paris 8, that’s already taken care of: watchmen, cameras, and disciplinary councils. Friday October 26th, a philo student appeared before the university’s disciplinary section. What was he accused of? Of having protested against the bureaucratic functioning of the enrollment services. The enrollment services, you recall? The office where you snapped after having waited in line for three hours?

It goes without saying that the Pécresse law won’t get through, like the other provocations of the same type that the right has tried in 1976, 1986, 1994, and 2006. But beyond the Pécresse law, it’s clear that the commodification of universities began a long time ago, under the right as under the left. As demonstrated by the regular raises in enrollment fees, the increased selectivity, the presence of managers in the administrative councils, and the creation of business degrees.

Beyond the Pécresse law, it’s this process that must be fought at the local level: commodification, and the policing that goes with it. No supermarkets without watchmen, no cops without bosses. Whether this boss calls himself “the State” or “Coca-Cola.”

It’s from this perspective that we have to fight the disciplinary councils, for what they are: the repressive arms of the bourgeoisie in the universities. It’s from this perspective that we must defend all the students who go before the disciplinary councils, whether for fraud in exams or for rebellion. Because at the university, fraud in exams is the first form of resistance to social selection! Against the police university — let’s fight for the abolition of disciplinary councils!

In the U.S. I’ve seldom heard of students protesting the commodification of education as such. And the class rhetoric is much more potent than I usually encounter. And finally, it’s interesting that the Right has supposedly tried to privatize universities four times already; I should look into that. See also this site.