The Bernard Notin affair
Bernard Notin, aged forty and married with five children, lecturer at the University of Lyon-III (Université Jean Moulin), is denounced in the daily Le Monde (January 28-29, 1990, p. 9) by Edwy Plenel for a study published in the review Économies et Sociétés (special issue no. 32, Presses Universitaires de Grenoble, August 1989 [printed December 1989], p. 117-133 – publication supported by the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique, CNRS). The study is deemed racist, anti-semitic and revisionist by that journalist. It contains, in particular, the following passage on the gas chambers:
The real, then, stands on trial before the unreal. The subject, a historical one, of the homicidal gas chambers is very revealing of this trial. The evidence offered to demonstrate their existence evolves with the circumstances and eras but is taken out of a mischief chest comprising three drawers. At the bottom: the visit to the premises (not very believable). In the middle: the victors’ statement (they existed). On the top: the hearsay (story of the man who saw the man who saw the man who…). All in all, their existence is postulated, and the reality of this reality matters little.
Here will be recognised the foundation of all tyranny.
The review’s director, Gérard Destanne de Bernis, also denounces the study, saying:
My view is that a padlock is needed somewhere,
as does the board of the ISMEA (Institut des Sciences Mathématiques et Économiques Appliquées). As for Mr Frédéric Poulon, professor at the University of Bordeaux-I and coordinator of the special issue, he says:
This is an affair that I deeply regret. But there is a serious question of freedom of expression. I am not dissociating myself from Bernard Notin.
A petition against B. Notin, originating from readers working at the Bank of France, is circulating at all the universities. Antoine d’Antume, professor of economics at Paris-I, deplores the fact that a scientific review should echo theses that are absolutely not scientific. Olivier Favereau, professor of economics at Paris X-Nanterre, says:
… the Faurissonians are seeking academic recognition. They want to accredit the idea that these are subjects discussed by scholars. The fact that this article should have appeared in an academic context is a serious matter.
Frédéric Poulon is “put to one side” and his seminar suspended. The MRAP (Movement against racism and for friendship among nations) makes a criminal complaint, specifying that “this decision has been taken at the request of Gérard Destanne de Bernis, editor of the review and member of the movement”. The latter asks libraries to withdraw the contentious issue of Économies et Sociétés from their lending service and to cut out Notin’s article. The University Press of Grenoble is going to print a new run without the incriminated article, to be replaced by a page of explanation on the scandal.
Jewish youths invade Notin’s class; they are accompanied by two wartime deportees and some Jewish personalities of Lyon, amongst whom Dr Marc Aron who, already in 1978-79, had organised demonstrations against professor Faurisson. Cameras film the scene. Notin, detained in his classroom – in fact, sequestered –, is insulted. He does not speak.
Michel Noir, mayor of Lyon, condemns the lecturer and declares that, for his part, he cannot remain insensitive to the idea of falsification of history being a “Lyon speciality”: allusion to the Faurisson affair in 1978-79, to the Roques affair in 1985 (two members of the thesis jury, Father Pierre Zind and Jean-Paul Allard, were from Lyon) and to certain student newspapers and fliers in 1987 at the time of the Barbie trial.
It is discovered that Notin is a member of the Front National’s scientific council.
Mr François Kourilsky, the CNRS’s director general, decides to cancel the subsidy for Économies et Sociétés.
In a letter to Le Monde, Mrs Madeleine Rebérioux, professor of history at Paris-VIII and vice-president of the Ligue des droits de l’homme (League of human rights), condemns the increased influence of the New Right in the University.
Bernard Notin keeps his calm. He protests against the invasion of his class. He specifies that, for him:
It has never been a question of denying the sufferings that the Jews and many others endured because of the Second World War. But neither the events of the past nor the present situations can escape discussion and criticism in the reviews which exist for that purpose.
The Union of French Jewish students requests the lecturer’s “removal from the teaching body”.
The council and then the board of directors of Lyon-III condemn Notin’s revisionist stances. The council of the law faculty where he is lecturer,
… fully respectful of the freedom of expression inherent in the University, is only all the more comfortable in condemning his deviations that lead to racism and revisionism and, in the case in point, in strongly denouncing the content of an article inspired by that miserable ideology.
Notin’s courses are cancelled by Laurent Boyer, dean of the law faculty: thus, for this academic with just his one salary, the financial penalty amounts to 30,000 francs per year.
Pierre Vialle, president of Lyon-III, lets Notin know that he does not intend to lodge any complaint against the Jewish demonstrators. In a communiqué he expresses the University council’s emotion and consternation and its “condemnation of the revisionist theses and of racism”.
Bernard Notin decides not to sit the competitive exam for a professorship of economics. He is forced to resign from his University’s scientific council where he represented the IAE (Institut d’Administration des Entreprises). This resignation was needed in order for the city of Lyon to resume seating a representative on the IAE’s governing board. For this post the city council appoints barrister Alain Jakubowicz, deputy chairman for the respect of human rights and one of the lawyers for the civil parties in the 1987 Barbie trial.
The rabbi of Lyon promises, discreetly, that, if Notin withdraws his criminal complaint for sequestration, the Jews will no longer come and demonstrate. The latter get the chancellor to lend them the big amphitheatre shared by Lyon-II and Lyon-III for an exhibit on the Shoah. Bernard Notin receives the moral support of colleagues throughout France. On the financial level, he faces all alone the MRAP and the considerable costs of a trial requiring two barristers, one in Lyon and the other in Paris.
May 1, 1990