2024-09-20 20:51:32
Sciences Po Paris has a new boss. After months of crisis and a process launched in June, the two governing bodies of the popular establishment have chosen Luis Vassy, a 44-year-old diplomat, as the new leader on Friday. Who is this normalien who wants to “cool” the Paris school?
Macron’s promotion
After cutting his teeth with Jean-Yves Le Drian, Minister of Defense, this normalien and enarque (member of the same promotion as Emmanuel Macron) is the French ambassador to the Netherlands, from 2019 to 2022, before the cabinet of ministers the next stranger. , Catherine Colonna, then Stéphane Séjourné. At 44, this senior civil servant with two French and Uruguayan nationalities is applying for the head of Sciences Po for the first time.
The son of a Uruguayan political refugee father and an Argentinian mother, the French native at the age of two, petitioned for the reformation of the establishment. He wants “management methods and communications that bring peace” and he wants to “restore the image of the establishment in the media and public opinion, and among academics, companies and financial partners”.
Student mobilization
Sciences Po has entered a new management crisis after the resignation in March of its former director, Mathias Vicherat, who was sent to court with his former partner in the domestic violence case. The former director general of Pôle Emploi Jean Bassères has been the temporary supervisor of the school since the end of March. The famous “school of the famous” has also been rocked in recent months by controversies linked to the gathering of pro-Palestinian students.
For this graduate of ENA, ENS Cachan and Sciences Po Paris, the conflicts abroad, the region, digital technology and the European question must guide the teaching and research of this “university of contemporaneity”.
For him, Sciences Po is “a very hybrid facility that is both academic and practical, both French and international” and “the world speaks to me about meaning,” he assured AFP a few days ago before to choose
“Cold Blood”
“As it is a bit of a storm, we need to understand what the lesson is, rebuild this institution and get back on track,” according to him. Luis Vassy praised his “coolness” and “ability to manage conflicts”, after his experience at the Quai d’Orsay with the crisis that followed the bloody attacks of October 7 in Israel and the beginning of the war in Gaza.
The Quai had to organize very complex clearing operations for the agents working in the French institute in Gaza. Many diplomats noted that it was “the balance on this issue” of Gaza. “He is a supporter of + at the same time +” (Israel’s right to defend itself while respecting international law), calculated a government source.
Vassy assures that Sciences Po “is something close to (his) heart because of (his) history but above all training and transfer of knowledge, it is a public instrument”, as a diplomat, with determination. look behind your glasses.
“war machine”
In his group, many agree that Luis Vassy is a “hell of an intellectual machine”. A former officer spoke of “a war machine that works non-stop”. “What is always in the mouth of many other ambassadors is that he is passionate and related to the values of the school, the progress of society through the school,” explained the diplomatic source.
But “some criticize it for its brittle side. He has important responsibilities but that does not remove him from being human,” added about the man whose appointment, approved on Friday by the governing bodies of Sciences Po, must also be approved by the executive.
#Luis #Vassy #director #school