Le Havre’s Administrative Scandal

Student disillusionment transcends the boundaries of Sciences Po Paris’ different campuses.

Note from the Editor: The Menton Times and the general Menton student body stands in solidarity with the campus of Le Havre and all those affected. We remain open and available for any action required on behalf of our campus to help.

Earlier this month, notifications from Instagram and Facebook Messenger about an incident at Le Havre flooded the phone of every student at the Sciences Po Paris campus of Menton. In the middle of finals week, students were busy discussing the mistreatment of a fellow student by the Le Havre administration.

While complaints of administrative failures are common to all campuses of our esteemed institution, very rarely do they transcend the borders of our respective campuses. This time was different. This time was drastic, and it is clear that students have had enough.

It all started on December 5, 2021. A student residing in the Centre Régional des Œuvres Universitaires et Scolaires (CROUS) campus housing, who has since resigned from Sciences Po Paris, was violently and physically attacked just outside his public, state-subsidized residence. He reached out to his administration for help and was met with disinterest and exasperation. In a later email from the campus director Catherine Droszewski to another administrator, which was accidentally forwarded to the student himself, she responded sarcastically to an email from his parents “sympa, le mail des parents!” (meaning, “nice, the email of the parents!”).

The student was not only ignored by administrators but met with mockery. Additionally, the Bureau des Élèves (BDE) of Le Havre was tasked with taking care of the student. Let me re-emphasize this matter: elected student representatives were told they were responsible for meeting the medical, psychological, and logistical needs of a student who had been brutally attacked, all in the middle of finals week.

We received a comment from the Menton BDE President Ada Baser, who said that she was “heartbroken at the situation in Le Havre.” She indicated that she has contacted the Le Havre BDE and offered to stand with them as members of the same extended student body.

She further commented on the role and expectation placed on the BDE at Le Havre. “I think that the BDE stepping up in this situation is applaudable for the support and effort they put into helping the student. However, such a responsibility should not be up to students themselves to solve, as that kind of a burden on young adults does not foster a healthy student environment for anyone,” she said.

“The role of the BDE in the very rules of the organization is to provide links between the administration and the students. In line with that, I think it is in part the responsibility of the BDE to aid their fellow classmates, but not the extent that we saw in Le Havre,” said Baser.

This idea — that the administration needs to start caring about our well-being outside of academic matters and the university setting — is a central part of student concern. The director of the Menton campus, Yasmina Touaibia, did not respond to our request for comment.

Our Le Havre counterpart, “Le Dragon Déchaîné,” has done the service of publishing the written version (full version accessible here) of the letter read by students at the General Assembly which followed this scandal. The letter is a collection of points that was produced from a discussion of more than 160 Le Havre students, and we have summarized the main points expressed by the students here:

• Disgust towards the indifference of the director, who, in addition to her sarcastic exchanges with other members of the administration, downplayed the severity of what happened, citing the fact that the student was “not killed in the event.”

• Disappointment at the lack of assistance for international students who, in addition to facing a language barrier, face a “hostile bureaucratized administrative apparatus both inside and outside the campus microcosm.” They assert that the administration, it seems, is unwilling to take on the responsibility of recognizing and assisting international students’ special needs.

• “No effective support, neither institutional nor emotional, was provided” in this case — the student was left helpless while the institution looked the other way and maintained an overly “sarcastic and disrespectful attitude.”

• The BDE and other associations were expected to take on the needs and grievances expressed by students, leaving those students with little support. “We cannot reasonably expect them to be accountable for the protection of the students in the city. That is not something they have been trained to do… the incompetence of the administration has ultimately burdened our associations and health ambassadors with additional responsibilities on top of their day-to-day duties.”

• This is not an isolated incident, but a pattern of behavior on behalf of the administration.

• Similar incidents of administrative indifference and contradiction, for instance, one student was refused time off or an excused absence after suffering a concussion and was forced to attend class. Fellow students and the teacher had to help them walk home, and Ms. Droszewski responded to this situation in a condescending manner, stating that the student should have stayed home (even though the student had deliberately not been excused from class).

• The message from the administration was perceived to be that “whatever happens outside of our campus walls is not the responsibility of the administration. They tell us, ‘we are not your parents.’”

• Towards the end of the letter, the students sorted their grievances into five categories: (1) lack of empathy on behalf of the administration; (2) mutual trust and responsibility; (3) pedagogical failures; (4) lack of medical support; (5) lack of support for international students.

• They further listed their demands as follows: (1) administrative recognition of wrongdoing and formal justification for their actions; (2) transparency, accountability, and support for future incidents; (3) create a position within the administration for international students; (4) address academic short-comings.

• Finally, the listed actions that the student body is willing to pursue to see actual change: (1) make the administration in Paris aware of the lack of systematic support and procedures in Le Havre; (2) extend this cause to the other Sciences Po undergraduate campuses.

While we have not yet been asked to take action with the other campuses as a part of a Sciences Po-wide movement, many members of our Mentonese ummah seem ready to do more. There is already a Google form circulating by Mentonese 2A Basile Rochet to collect students’ thoughts and feedback on the administration across campuses. (If you are a Sciences Po student who has not filled out the form yet, contact Rochet for more information on how to do so).

On a Messenger group chat for Menton, one student said, “honestly I think it’s time the students actually start protesting the incompetence of the admin[istration]… it could’ve been any of us and [the] Menton admin[istration] wouldn’t do sh*t. This needs to change.”

These complaints are not new, either. I published a controversial article nearly one year ago in the campus journal, “Le Zadig,” expressing a variety of complaints put forth by students about the Menton administration. In fact, when I had asked for opinions on the administration, my inbox was flooded with messages, not one of them positive.

Mentonese students felt similar to those at Le Havre about having to fill the gaps left by administrators, and they were especially fed up with the pedagogical failures. The article also touched on the lack of medical support with regards to COVID-19 (in fact, until March of 2021, the campus’ COVID response was entirely run by the Social Service Pole of the BDE). The article is a product of the anecdotes and testimonies that I received.

Although members of the administration had either declined to comment or failed to respond to my request for comment, one administrator contacted me personally several times requesting that I take down her name from my article. At one point, she even linked my article in an email chain CC'd with the entire administration concerning problems with my account access. She wrote, “We are all sure about your investment and how much you care about your studies at Sciences Po. You also expressed and share[d] your opinion on the blog recently: [attached link].”

We received a comment from “Le Dragon Déchaîné” that “the general mood of the campus has rather simmered down for the moment, mostly due to finals and later the beginning of winter break. It is also partly attributable to the fact that the campus struggled to channel the original motivation into concrete, collective measures or demands from the Paris administration.” Besides the letter and a few signs of protest, no other forms of demand had taken place. Director Catherine Droszewski “wrote an email to the students in response to the letter which very briefly mentioned her intention of having further dialogue with the students, but nothing else of substance.”

Only time will tell what the future holds for the undergraduate community of Sciences Po Paris, but if one thing is certain, it is that students across campuses are running out of patience with the remiss administration.

- Celeste Abourjeili