March 4, 1980
By invoking, as a pretext, the existence of [drug] trafficking [at Vincennes], the [University] Council decided to call on patrols, that a policing, a para-policing, a specifically university police. Such patrols would be called upon to verify student identity cards, and even worse, professors’ identity cards, requiring a photo. Worse yet: automobiles themselves. In short, a ridiculous control. The patrols were put into place, then it seems, three or four hours later, the Council revoked its decision. Immediately we became even more worried, wondering whether they either really committed a stupid error, or else this is going forward in another guise. So, what I need to say is that everyone understands the enormous difficulties and the forbidding regimen imposed by the control of student identity cards at the university entrance.
Seminar Introduction
Following publication of Anti-Oedipus in 1972, Deleuze continues to develop the proliferation of concepts that his collaboration with Guattari had yielded. As part of this process of expanding concepts in order to produce the sequel of Capitalism & Schizophrenia, A Thousand Plateaus, this series of 13 lectures on “The State Apparatus and War Machines” constitutes the major seminar of 1979-80 and Deleuze’s penultimate consideration of these concepts. Deleuze first considers material begun during the previous year’s seminar, material corresponding to plateaus 12 (1227: Treatise on Nomadology – The War Machine), 13 (7000 B.C.: Apparatus of Capture), and 14 (1440: The Smooth and the Striated).
Deleuze then returns to the history of philosophy with five sessions on Leibniz, after which he concludes the academic year, at his students’ request, with two final sessions of reflections on Anti-Oedipus.
English Translation
Rather than discuss the axiomatic and problems linked to it, Deleuze allows the students to discuss diverse problems on the Vincennes campus and in French national politics related to the university (cf. François Dosse, Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari. Intersecting Lives, chapter 19, “Deleuze at Vincennes”). The specific discussion concerns notably the imposition at Vincennes (on the pretext of drug trafficking) of a system of “para-police”, on-campus security guards to verify both students’ and professors’ identity cards, a measure momentarily enforced and then revoked. While raising several ways in which these and other actions correspond to aspects of the apparatus capture, the bulk of the class is devoted to communicating details of actions taken by the University Council, to outlining tactics for responses, and to discussing certain thresholds beyond which holding class would no longer be possible. This session is especially remarkable for showing Deleuze’s careful intervention on behalf of the students’ interests and his way of providing insight for their positions based on his knowledge of departmental and university initiatives.
Gilles Deleuze
Seminar on Apparatuses of Capture and War Machines, 1979-1980
Lecture 10, 04 March 1980
Transcribed by Annabelle Dufourcq and Mariana Carrasco Berge; augmented translation, Charles J. Stivale
Translation: Charles J. Stivale
Part 1
… disappeared without any problem. So, it’s always disturbing when the day before there is a problem and, the next day, it’s gone.[1]
And if I summarize, I suppose you are all aware, the University Council has made a decision — among others, but I will start with this one — a completely unusual decision by invoking for the reason, under the pretext of the existence of drug trafficking — while it seems to everyone that, if there have never been any drug problems, especially in Vincennes, it seems that, in recent years, these problems are more and more… secondary and have… even lost all their acute character — well, by thus employing as a pretext the existence of such traffic, the Council decided to call in security guards, that is, a police force, a para-police force, a strictly university police force, the security guards of which would be assigned the surveillance of student ID cards; worse still: professors’ ID cards who must provide photos. [Laughter] Worse still: the cars themselves. Anyway, a stupid surveillance (contrôle de con), really. The security guards were put in place. It seems that…, three hours later, four hours later, the Council reversed its decision. Suddenly, our anxiety increases. We tell ourselves: either they really did a… made some crazy blunder, or else it’s going to be repeated in another form.
And what I want to say is that everyone can understands the stupendous drawbacks and … the dreadful regime established by the surveillance of student cards at the university entrance. Everyone also understands that if there are drugs, that [surveillance] does not [Inaudible] resolve anything regarding the [drug] problem and regarding possible drug trafficking. But I would like to insist — insofar as there is always a risk that such measures will be repeated — on a very specific aspect, which does not even concern foreign students, because for foreign students, it’s too obvious that controlling their cards is a measure that affects them in an even worse, even harsher way. Okay, that’s obvious.
One thing that seems less obvious to me is that… and which I really care about, is that if student card surveillance is introduced in a university unit (faculté), it means that the door is closed to what are called auditors, whether foreign or French.[2] And it seems obvious to me that a university which closes its door to auditors is a university which is closing in on itself, which is drying up its own recruitment, and which is becoming a kind of … school (école) in the sense of … upper school, in the sense of a high school, really. So, I believe that it is essential, really very, very important that the university’s access to auditors be maintained at all costs, because they are the one who are simultaneously serving as a guarantee that the registered students and foreign students will not be subject to surveillance. If we no longer have the right to welcome auditors into the course (UV)[3] framework, I maintain there is an absolute danger for everyone.
A student: [Inaudible; in light of the answer, he asks Deleuze to read a document]
Deleuze: I’m reading. I am reading because it seems to me a wonder (merveille), perhaps, to use for the future. I am reading the President’s letter to the teaching staff. I’m not betraying any secrets since it ends with: you are invited to share these decisions with the students. [Laughter] So, these decisions disappeared. Hence, I am reading: “A control of student cards, at campus entrances, teachers, staff, continuing education trainees, etc., will receive an individual card or certificate”. Fine, fine, fine [Deleuze skips some lines] … “These controls will be carried out by professionals”. [Laughter] … “These controls will be carried out by professionals. One or more teachers will be present every day at the entry lodge…”, you see, the poor service guy will still be forced to accept having someone from the Council there since… “one or more teachers will be present every day at the entry lodge,to examine specific cases, in parentheses, auditors, visitors”. So, I tell myself here, eh… I am asking, for myself, I get the impression that… here [in the seminar group], and I am not the only one, about half of you are auditors. Right? Fine. Yeah.
A woman student: Who does that leave?
Deleuze: What?
The student: I wonder if there is even one student that … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: That’s it! Ah yes! I’m not saying this is a special case at all here. But I’m sure more than half of us are auditors here.
The student: [Inaudible comments] if they come …
Deleuze: So, obviously, I imagine, if only here, I assume there are … forty auditors or fifty auditors. Can you… can you imagine, you see, eh, what a traffic jam would occur, right?! Right, that’s the type… that’s the only kind of retaliation possible, if… that control were… that would be… okay… [He doesn’t finish the thought]
And so, at the same time, I am adding, before … I would like your opinion, that there remain two extremely urgent problems, even if one supposes that this matter of surveillance has disappeared, I do not believe it because … There is something obvious: why is all this happening? I mean … we can never tell ourselves that those others [the Council] are dumber than we are. Why did they put themselves in this situation? To announce the surveillance measure, to put up posters everywhere, and then, in one day, retract all that, I am saying, it is obvious that certain currents, internal to Vincennes even, have a very keen interest in the following policy: as it is certain that the transfer won’t be avoided, therefore the next year, at the start of the next school year, a certain number of teachers or administrators must admit to themselves that, if necessary, a showdown is needed beforehand, that a showdown is needed beforehand allowing a normalization of the university, of this university, a normalizing of Paris VIII before the transfer.[4] And, in fact, from their point of view, from their point of view, this is not stupid. It is almost a matter of fixing the problems that may arise at the time of the transfer, of fixing them beforehand, even at the cost of creating forms of provocation.
And in this regard, I am saying that the “student cards” story was a particularly visible provocation, but that it’s being continued… — and the Council has not yet reconsidered – by two other decisions, namely: opening up the university to the narcotics police, and under conditions that I do not know. If there are any of you who know, for example, whether the term “police” means “the right to carry weapons”, right? Does that mean that there are armed police walking around? What are their powers on behalf of … their drug investigation? Can they come into a class, to sniff if there’s a little joint, [Laughter] and… and take someone into custody? What is the limit of their power? What is… I don’t know; that has never been specified, to my knowledge, by the Council. I would very much like the Council to clarify this precisely. So, in short, there are, … there are policemen walking around with guns, who have the power to enter, I don’t know, fine. However, on this point, the Council did not completely retract this admission of narcotics police into the university.
A second extremely important point, which seems to me an abominable story, is that there was, as there are in all the universities, but particularly in this one, there was a small number of false dossiers. These false dossiers are linked and originate from a very simple matter which is the situation of foreign students today. And these false dossiers, to my knowledge, have produced what is nevertheless … extremely rare in the history of the university, have produced from the [University] President, I do believe, I do believe that he is the one who specifically lodged a formal complaint. While administrative sanctions have always existed, in all faculty groups, in all trade groups, and generally, there is no occasion …, but there is an old university tradition, I do not even say that it is solely the tradition at Vincennes, it is the tradition, including in high schools, etc., for the Rector to have certain disciplinary powers, etc. that… one only lodges a formal complaint in the event of a murder… And, in the name of these few false dossiers, a formal complaint was lodged which is very serious, especially since one of these false dossiers, so it’s particularly serious, included a false residence permit, I believe. As a result, the guy against whom the formal complaint was lodged is obviously extremely threatened. And it is obviously unacceptable, on the part of a university president, to lodge a formal complaint for… how… how to put it, errors (défaillances) or… or… finally, find the word… which would be administrative in nature.
So, I am saying that, of our three problems, one suddenly, wonderfully, but incomprehensibly disappeared as the Council revisited this whole matter of security cards and student ID card surveillance. The other two problems remain. I’m not sure that the first problem won’t come back to us in… ten days, two weeks… and, or even [if it’s] something to be undertaken during the Easter holidays, yes, yes, yes, yes. So my question is: I believe that … it would be very good to plan ahead with forms of response, and also very good not to forget the two points: the presence of police in the university, first point; second point: this case of formal complaints for dossier tampering, for false dossiers, right, and for use of forgery. These are two points which are essential and for which the Council must provide explanations, or that even the President must provide them.
There we are. As for the possibility, in fact, that something might occur during Easter, well, I would very much like for us to manage to come up with … some possible forms of response. It stands to reason that, for example, someone was in fact proposing the possibility that … What made it work so well here, … yesterday? This is because the administrative staff had already grouped themselves together, instead of entering, an old technique, instead of entering one by one or two by two, and perhaps, henceforth, of getting confronted by a security guard; they entered as a massive group, so the security guards were immediately overwhelmed. On the other hand, I think the students were very… themselves… used a very effective technique, that is, [Inaudible] suddenly with each security guard … [Inaudible] [Laughter] And the point is that every collision has been avoided, so this is very, very good. What still worries me is how the problem suddenly … vanished. It’s like we’re being told: what’s your problem? There was never anything different! There was never anything different! So: there was something different; we weren’t dreaming. And there are things that are continuing to occur.
A student: [Inaudible comments]
Deleuze: The situation in what respect?
A student: [Inaudible comments]
Deleuze: So, it’s very important… I can see clearly… on the teachers’ side, I can see what we can do. It’s not much, already, but what we can do immediately is: bury the Council with … protests and declarations, and requests for explanations, requests for an explanation about the powers granted to the police, for example, etc., protests against the project for security guards, fine, and emphasize our disagreement to the maximum, that’s it. On the student side, I was not at the General Assembly yesterday. Who was there? What was decided? What was proposed? What …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: So …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, back to basics. So… well, well, let’s talk about this.
Another student: It seems of great interest to take a look … [Inaudible] L’Humanité has quite simply recast the responsibility onto the [Inaudible] of the PS [Socialist Party] …[5]
Deleuze: Is that true?
The student: Quite simply, they are at the origin of the Vincennes disorders at the present time… [Laughter] However, we know that the decision taken by Merlin,[6] and endorsed by the Council with its predominantly Communist majority… [Inaudible] This is odd anyway.
Deleuze: Someone pointed out to me that, in fact, the PC [French Communist Party] has a current policy which is extremely simple, which is summarized by Marchais[7] when he says… “between drugs and the Olympic games, I chose the Olympic games” [Laughter], but that, very strangely, this campaign against drugs, at one point again … we all have the impression that drugs, we all have the impression either to rejoice or to regret it, that drugs have ceased to be an urgent problem. So, it’s … it’s … it’s rather odd … that … there is this campaign, and which unites France-Soir following a … well-tested formula, which brings together France-Soir and the PC.[8] And what is very odd is that this anti-drug campaign is exploding and corresponding roughly … well, to Vincennes. I mean … there’s a history of a high school … it’s in … it’s in the Marne, right, a high school where the … where the Communist Party launched its anti-drug campaign … it’s in Vitry?
A woman student: No, not in Vitry, that’s not it …
Deleuze: No.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: And in Vincennes, this is surely linked to matters also concerning … the municipality. I don’t know, I don’t know. So, in fact, there… it’s… this is very odd all the same. To come back to what you are saying, the great campaign that the Communist Party undertook about this high school, there, by attacking the teachers who had raised the question of so-called soft drugs, good, and then, it’s like a revival here in Vincennes which is taking place, there … a connection operating through Vincennes which is very, very, very bizarre.
A student: What is odd [Inaudible] about the islands of security, that is, to strengthen the police presence in order to make [Inaudible] livable. [Inaudible] in order to be safe, we must strengthen the police presence by [Inaudible] the establishment of a [Inaudible] … fascist [Inaudible] fiscal …
A woman student: [Inaudible] the Council [Inaudible] at two o’clock.
Deleuze: Yes, yes
The student: [Inaudible] at two o’clock, so everyone [Inaudible] the GA [General Assembly], very calmly; [Inaudible] over an hour! And so, the students had to go find the Council en masse: they were locked in there, they did not want to leave; they wanted to go through the window …
Deleuze: The Council, they wanted to go out through the window?! [Laughter]
The student: Yes!
Deleuze: There is no dignity anymore. At the time of… the time of the previous president, who was [Claude] Frioux, Frioux had a much better technique, eh… [If] Frioux was surrounded by students, he would take the head of the procession and would go to sequester himself.[9] [Laughter] I find that… I find that… it’s… that it had more… flexibility, diplomacy and dignity, than escaping out the windows… [Laughter]… [That’s] really unfortunate. I see two aspects in that … that would almost … we have not finished talking about this, but this would almost be a transition with what I have left to say about our work.
I see two aspects here that are confirmed everywhere, even three, if necessary, three aspects. There is still a tendency to give civilian functions a new military structure. I am thinking about one point, for example, we are being treated like an atomic factory, right? See, in an atomic factory, the… from the cleaners to the engineers, they have a little thing with their photo… there, well, this is the passage under surveillance … not even from the police; it is not a police regime, it is a military regime, there. This is the militarization of civilian functions that belongs very, very deeply to our society.
I’ll choose another example that affects all of you … good. In a lot of… — yes, here, this connects … it’s good that…, these are two separate things; I mean, what we have to say to each other practically, there, and then our work… it’s very good if it coincides — I am choosing a specific example that strikes me as the militarization of a civilian function. I would say the police, at the extreme, are a civilian function; it’s obvious, it’s obvious. For once, the police are not at all the same as the military. And you are aware that, in a certain number of European countries, namely Germany, Italy and in… in… how would I say it… in… I cannot find my word, you see, an… [there’s] an effort to catch up with them more recently in France … Here’s what happened: the police demand, in more or less direct forms, for… the right to shoot on sight. The right to shoot on sight, we tell ourselves, it’s… it’s, it’s… terrible, right? Under what forms did this occur? It occurred, to my knowledge, in three forms: uh… it occurred in some very… I would say strong forms, some strong forms and some devious forms. The strong forms occurred in Italy [Inaudible] and in Germany. This right to shoot on sight was invoked by reason of the existence of terrorism. So, if it’s a terrorist, they shoot on sight. Fine.
France — in the constitution of a European judicial area – France found itself … looking quite stupid once again, because there was an obvious desire from the start for an alignment with this new police structure, and we lacked… we lacked … the justification, namely the existence of terrorism. Fortunately [Jacques] Mesrine arrived, and we caught up a little thanks to Mesrine; he was public enemy number one.[10] What I mean is that there was a campaign which was readied for the next day and which was subsequently confirmed, namely that as soon as there is a public enemy, the right to shoot on sight is a given. So, in its own way and in a more devious form, France found a way to align itself with the police regime in Italy and Germany.
And I mean something quite simple. This is… this is… my first point. When the police have the right to shoot on sight, it’s obvious then that to shoot on sight means what? Well, this is a regime that is no longer the police regime at all; it is the military regime, it is the war regime! Shooting on sight is war itself. So, here, the demand, even when it is conditional, under certain conditions, the police demand to shoot on sight has as immediate meaning, it seems to me, a kind of militarization of the police, namely the assimilation of the policing function within a war function.
A second point, what does this imply? This implies a whole new category, and, as we all know, a whole new category of enemy. Since the enemy is the notion specific to both the army and the state of war, the militarization of civilian functions in the State can only occur if we form a strong and new concept of the enemy. So, what is the enemy? At that point, it is the famous concept, and this concept has already been highly elaborated, as much by jurists as by specialists of national defense, the enemy becomes any enemy whatsoever (l’ennemi quelconque). And the notion of any enemy whatsoever is a notion, currently, I believe, which has not yet received its full status, but … and which will receive it. Jurists are working on it, the military, generals are working on it, the … national defense magazines are cluttered with articles on the any enemy whatsoever. So any enemy whatsoever, we can see very well, could be the drug trafficker as well, yes, ah, well, it is any enemy whatsoever; it could be Mesrine; it could be the terrorist, but it can be the political autonomist, it could be… whatever you want, it can be… [Deleuze does not finish] And see why I am insisting on this point: it is just that this interests me a lot, because any enemy whatsoever is typically an axiomatic notion, that’s obvious; it’s part of the theory of any object whatsoever. That’s … so, to me, that … interests me theoretically as well as it’s a practical concern.
And finally, my last remark would be this; it’s that, in this regime, therefore, of militarization of civilian functions, with any enemy whatsoever as a basis that, at the extreme, is extraordinarily fluid since each of us can be the any enemy whatsoever under a particular aspect; this is really the axiomatic which is set into motion. Well, here we find an expression or a factual situation which has been very well analyzed, it seems to me, by… by [Paul] Virilio,[11] namely the idea, the kind of… organization of security — I was thinking about this precisely because someone has just spoken of islands of security, etc. — the organization of security based on the management of small insecurities. And that’s very curious, because this is a modern notion, we could say, the management of molecular insecurities, which is one with the organization of a security. So, this is very curious.
I mean: if you take the spectacle of a city now, all the same, there is… there is something that is very, very odd: it is… it is in the realm of everyday life…, but these cities which are perpetually, for example, crisscrossed with… EMT vehicles. And emergency medicine, you see these little cars or ambulances all the time, all the time; it’s very odd, because there are emergency doctors who have asked, but… leftists [doctors], who asked a very interesting question, it seems to me, about the nature of the profession that we make them do. Because, when one isn’t fully aware of this, for example, we tend to tell ourselves: ah well yes, emergency medicine is still not so bad, because hey, why the … if an old lady breaks her leg, at home, a poor old woman, emergencies occur, it’s true. But, emergency doctors themselves say that these are extraordinarily rare cases, that emergencies; they have, for example, if they deal with … twenty … twenty cases or thirty cases, I don’t know, for example, they have two emergencies, right, the old lady with the [Inaudible] of the femur, this is rare, really. What happens is… someone who has a cold, yes, it’s someone who has a cold or who tells himself: hey, I have a headache, something must be wrong… I have high blood pressure, he calls to have his blood pressure taken… With that, emergencies…. Why is he calling? Because … there are no longer … there are no longer many generalists, there are no longer many general practitioners … of general medicine, and those who remain, they do not make house calls to patients.
So, you see that, here, I want to say a very simple thing: we understand that the atmosphere of a kind of huge security, thanks to the medicine of… emergency medicine, you can be treated whenever you want it, in ten minutes … etc., occurs at the same time through a management of small insecurities, namely: the city crisscrossed by these cars, ambulances, etc., the character, as we … as the specialists say, the organized character of the city as permanent stress, like a kind of stress of permanent aggression. And it is against this background of a thousand small programmed insecurities that the administration of hardened security, a militarized security, of a military security is based.
So, that coincides very well with the determination at the same time of any enemy whatsoever … Whatsoever, this is… this is your neighbor, the management of small insecurities, radio games, well, all that, etc. … Gather information about your neighbor… well, fine… the famous games of German TV [Inaudible] Yes… this is the determina… this is rather the position of… it is this new function, the function of the any enemy whatsoever that accompanies…, which serves as a correlate to the militarization of civilian functions, on the one hand, and on the other hand, to the kind of military security that emerges from the management of small insecurities. So fine. Ah! drugs, drugs in Vincennes! Huh… Some kind of molecular drug there, well… even if it’s not drugs, it’s the equivalent of drugs. Vincennes is the drug… [Laughter], and then, there’s a kind of process of security (sécurisation). The [University] President says: ah well yes, you see, security is going to be the narcotics squad. Fine, there we are.
Yeah so, getting back to practical matters, ah … what … what … is there a date for the next Council [meeting]? March 15? This Saturday?
A woman student: No, next Saturday …
Deleuze: Saturday… no, the following Saturday, yes. Anyway, you’re telling me that Merlin said that … there was no way the formal complaints would be withdrawn, is that right? Yes?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: About the brigade, about the presence of the brigade in the university?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Oh, ok.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: What?
A student: [Inaudible]
A woman student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: And what are … once again, has the question been asked about what are the rights of this brigade? I mean: does it have the right to intervene in classes in session (UVs)?
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Normally, if it’s the … flagrante delicto, they can come in here and …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: No, that is something else! My question is, do they have the right to do that?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: That…?
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze:[12] Yes, but it was … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, because I would agree with you to say that, them, their best interests, they should not give a damn about that, but if they are told to do something, they will do it.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, but that sidesteps my sole argument, which I am thinking about very strongly, which is that both the Ministry and certain internal movements in Vincennes have an interest in a showdown before the transfer.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Of course not, but uh… the Communist Party, I agree; the Ministry [of Universities], I’m less sure, that it wouldn’t be able to…
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: You have a lot of confidence. [Laughter]
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: For me, I only see one thing as a response, in fact. For example, I am coming back to this matter of security guards. If the security guards matter returns, there is… the immediate idea, of course, is that all students… [if] no student would present his/her card, so what happens? It’s not that… it means: they don’t have their cards, okay. My question, already, if we tried … — there is a very justified call for things to be worked out in the class sessions (UVs) — if that occurred, I am asking: would foreign students be in particular danger? They are obviously more vulnerable.
A woman student: Well no, it’s not sure …
Deleuze: What?
The student: Those who have their cards …?
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Obviously
Various voices: [Inaudible]
A student: And it seems to me that in a case like that, it is the [Inaudible]… A series of facts… [Inaudible] provokes, and then there is a retreat… [Inaudible] I am armed and… [35 : 00] I don’t believe what you’re saying, we’re going to be armed… [Inaudible]
A woman student: I think there is still one thing …
Deleuze: Wait, he hasn’t finished; I think he’s not finished.
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: The withdrawal of the guards, right? That’s it: the … the majority that has decided to reverse the … this is a tiny majority. I was told thirteen against twelve, you say fourteen against thirteen, it’s the same.
Another student: In the assembly, it was nine … eight … people … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yeah, but that … do you get the impression that nobody believes it, that nobody believes it? They are saying it, but nobody believes it.
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, but if I return to… What?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, precisely, to clean things up before the transfer [to St. Denis], right, I’ll come back to that, because there are a number of departments which, if you will, basically are creating problems (emmerdent) for the… the normalizers, right? The departments that are creating problems for the normalizers, that’s … for example, I’m not saying it’s the only one, but that’s … the philosophy [department]. Why? Because we’re de… we’re denationalized, deprived of everything, in a catastrophic situation… [Laughter] and it’s obvious that, for example, the philosophy department has a need… a need, like oxygen, for auditors.
A woman student: But they [these departments] were the ones who created the situation anyway, since they took away the diplomas… [Inaudible] who can there be in the philosophy department? Either auditors or people from other universities.
Deleuze: Yes, yes …
The student: Yes! It’s a problem, but it’s a problem of… jealousy.
Another woman student: No, but there are very few; we should ask the class here.
A student: [Inaudible]
The first woman student: Here? Yes, but without a diploma …
The second woman student: Yes, yes! They want a diploma from Vincennes.
The first student: Yes, they want a diploma from Vincennes. So, they want to nationalize a new degree before the transfer, liquidate the philosophy department as it is now… They’ve been trying for seven years… [Inaudible]
A student: [Inaudible] to the outside, ourselves, ourselves [Inaudible] from the police… [Inaudible] [38: 00]
Various voices: [Inaudible]
A student: [Inaudible]… because they themselves know that they are not currently able to initiate negotiations… [Inaudible] The Council is the PS [Socialist Party], [Inaudible] these are people who are barely accredited [Inaudible] but they control the university, they control [Inaudible] they have ideas to hold onto it [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yeah! There’s nothing to laugh at here….
The student: … it isn’t the case. [Inaudible]
Deleuze: And you are saying … normalization has occurred in a majority of departments.
A student: Of course, of course, but those who stay, for those who stay, everyone knows [Inaudible] in the current situation [Inaudible]
A woman student: Yes, but that sucks …
The student: But I don’t believe in their interests, I don’t believe they are people who believe … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Okay, and one is still surprised. And we tell ourselves: ah, well, that, I had not thought of that. So, what are they up to now?
The student: It’s not them … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: So yes, but do you agree with the following principle …
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Do you think they’re tired of paying our lecturers? Sure, sure, sure.
Another student: [Inaudible] they tell themselves that… going to Saint-Denis when they can’t go to Saint-Denis… [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, but once again, our problem is this: isn’t it true that, before going to Saint-Denis, they need to have a confrontation?
A woman student: Yes, but me… [Inaudible]
Previous student: Actually, they said they were going to shut down university …
Deleuze: Yeah, yeah, yeah… that’s occurred. There are … there are some who say: that has occurred.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Another student: There is something … very interesting since yesterday, it is that for the first time, the long-held illusion … namely, that there is like that a kind of alliance among the people of Vincennes and which means that [Inaudible] against the Minister [Inaudible] has concretely fallen, right, now the contradiction is apparent between the Council and the interests quite simply of the students. The showdown is … [Inaudible] After, if you will, the Council yesterday is … [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: But there is something that makes me think that, finally…, auditors are much more threatened than, even, foreign students, because, in fact, in the logic… in the Communist logic …
Deleuze: Oh yes, that …
The woman student near Deleuze: Yes, no, but the non-graduates as well, but what I mean is that, in the Communist logic of labor, let’s finally take “labor” without thinking about the university, I mean someone who comes to a place, well, to an office or a factory, as a free worker, that is, who doesn’t want to be paid, I mean that for a Communist, that’s really the thing he couldn’t stand, because he knows exactly what labor is. I mean, he just talks about the world of labor. And so, if we go back to the same situation with regard to students, it is certain that … as Gilles was saying earlier, from the moment that free students are present, both free students and … and foreign students and non-graduate students can remain, that’s obvious. But as long as there are no more auditors, I mean … then there really is nothing left … I mean, the rest of them disappear at the same time.
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Yes, that’s it.
The student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Of course
The student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Well, they are jealous because, here, there is only that, obviously! Well they are, they are …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: What?
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes! Yes. Yes, Yes, Yes.
The student: And, like next year, all that’s left is … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: I believe that… well I’m not sure, that a possible concern, one of their possible concerns would be that the conditions of the transfer [to Saint-Denis] are obviously catastrophic, that… they may fear that the conditions of the transfer … there are pros and cons. It is not certain that the very fact of the transfer does not eliminate all the problems, that is, that people accustomed to Vincennes do not return, the changing location … they … [Inaudible] … they will not go there, that everything takes place calmly.
But, there will also be, given the small size of the available space, there will probably be a dismantling, that is, that there will be departments which will be regrouped, for example, the non-normalized departments … will be obvious … will probably be put in some sort of sub-ghetto. One would think that the conditions of the transfer would rekindle forces of protest — even on the part of currently normalized students — would reignite some sort of … thing. Hence — but I’m presenting this as a pure hypothesis, eh, I’m not at all sure that… every time I predict something, I’m wrong, so it’s… — I am saying, I have the feeling that they are looking for something first. I’m not sure; if you tell me no, why? I am not sure. Yes, yes, yes … I have the feeling that there is … they are looking for a confrontation beforehand. What? … [Interruption of the recording] [46: 29]
Part 2
A student: Next year it’s going to be tight, right? [Inaudible]
Another student: … already going to the prefecture to see what is going on, eh! Even with proper papers …
Deleuze: Yes, it has been for a long time, yes …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: No, you’re right, but you’re not right, in fact, because… it’s true what you’re saying: there is no question of… stopping student immigration in France. But…
The student: Absolutely not …
Deleuze: … it’s all about changing its nature completely, in dual agreement between the French government and, for example, the African governments, …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes
Another student: … the guys should have their dossiers from their respective countries…
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes …
The student: The administration of … the country [Inaudible] … gives you the dossier, they give …
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes
The student: And not from just any university
Deleuze: Yes
The student: … [Inaudible] students come to study in France rather than going to Germany, than going to …
Deleuze: In my opinion, you are neglecting a very important point here, it is that … what you say is only true very, very generally because, what is happening now is that the recruitment of foreign students in France, for example, African students, is tending to change, namely: the same number will be allowed to study in France as needed, but a guaranteed number and where each specimen will be guaranteed by the government of origin.
A woman student: There’s another thing: when you ask Pakistanis …
Deleuze: Of course!
The same student: … if they speak French; from the start they are eliminated, in the Asian countries where one French isn’t spoken, when one goes to the embassy to apply for a visa, and one asks if you speak French, if you don’t speak French, well … you can’t …
A student: It’s that, it has been two years …
The woman student: Yes, that’s it!
The student: … stories about embassies of these countries …
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes. Well, you know, two years is very recent, eh! It’s… it’s not that old… [Laughter].
Another student: It’s old, though …
Deleuze: I see… if the matter … I am coming back to the matter of the security guards, right? If the matter of the security guards were to happen again, uh… I see, then… it is up to you to say what you think; for me, I would see as an immediate response, I do not say a long range response, as an immediate response, three things simultaneously: maintain this old technique of grouping, for example, by classes (UV), right, those who are taking this class, and well, we all meet — so that would be, for example, say between fifty and a hundred people — and we arrive as a group. At that point, it would be split into two, practically. There would be those registered at Vincennes who say — but as a group, it is not a question of saying it one by one –: we do not have our card. You will tell me: good, and then after that? We will see. On the other hand, auditors would do the opposite: they would go to the control lodge, where the poor service guy is sitting, and they will say: here is our case, we are auditors, and me as a teacher, I guarantee that I absolutely need them for the… the forty, the fifty, the hundred, fine! Even at that point, we will invent some, some auditors … that I absolutely need for the normal functioning of my course. That creates a traffic jam, right, but as an immediate measure, ok? Third and simultaneously, what I would almost suggest, but you would have to agree, but… here we are talking casually; this is a pure project…: to see if there is any way make an agreement, for a week or two weeks, with the Cartoucherie[13] — which is not far away — and continue holding class sessions on other premises, which avoids… they are having problems?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: What?
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Well, that’s good, so they would leave us … some hangars (granges), and we would go and work there. Well, that would create a kind of situation of force where we would be in a kind of illegality since it is absolutely forbidden to teach anywhere other than on the premises of the university, but our argument would be that the conditions for exercising normal courses in the university were taken away from us. So, I see … once again, it’s not that at all, as a long-range plan, it’s at immediate range: we can do that, we can last a few weeks in this mode.
A student: I think it is very important precisely because it would allow an opening in opposition to of the logic into which they want to lock us.
Deleuze: Yes, yes
Another student: For me, it’s… action-reaction, actually… [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yeah
Another student: [Inaudible]
Previous student: Because I find that …
Deleuze: They would rather close it down.
The student: It’s weird, I think it’s too easy … [Inaudible] Normally they don’t care …
Deleuze: I think so too. Well, I have the same feeling as you, I find that very fishy.
Another student: [Inaudible] … security guards. Yesterday, to bring them back in a fortnight, let there be a showdown. Based on this showdown, close the university.
A woman student: But they wanted to have it, this showdown …
A student: No, they didn’t want to have it yesterday …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
A student: They really want a pretext …
Deleuze: Hence your insistence on the next meeting in two weeks.
The student: In two weeks … Yes, because, the text had to be read [Inaudible] … they questioned everything they had voted on yesterday … [Inaudible] everything that was voted on yesterday, that is, the withdrawal of the guards …
A woman student: The narcotics squad …
A student: Yes, the narcotics squad …
Deleuze: No, how were they questioning the squad?
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Ah good, oh yes, yes, yes …
A student: That is, they can go back on what was voted on.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Ah, they made a provisional suspension! And they put it off for two weeks.
A student: [Inaudible] We’ll see how it goes during these two weeks. And then we’ll see.
Another student: I think, it is… the problem also arises with regard to the narcotics squad, I have… I communicated the information in… at the level of each [Inaudible], I am referring to the article published in Saturday’s Le Monde: the … the dealers in question are known to the police, and I personally, I read the Public Prosecutor’s report … well the journalist…, the dealer with whom he spoke, the journalist from Le Monde, who did not tell the whole truth, of course… Well, he [the dealer] was released; the police returned the drugs to him on the spot, on the campus itself; he was arrested on the spot, of course, transferred … finally present in court, the prosecution presented its report, then they released him. To me, personally, the Prosecutor’s report is scandalous, and then the journalist didn’t say anything about it, of course. So the question of the narcotics squad on campus is completely absurd, because they [the dealers] are judged, they are released: this is quite simply a propaganda campaign that the government is setting up, and which finds its justification, of course, in the [Inaudible] which is one of the university’s authorities, of course, the Council. So, talking about the presence of the narcotics squad on campus, I find that unspeakable, and then without any significance because the complicity then comes from above anyway …
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes.
The woman student near Deleuze: That’s why we have to be very careful, because… well, you were saying earlier that there was finally… no… not a new militarization of the civilian life, but that somehow… legally, we were creating any enemy whatsoever. I mean, in fact, maybe also the way of creating any enemy whatsoever … before creating it legally, maybe it’s also this thing that looks so easy …, that … everyone is ready to be an enemy. I mean, it always seems to me every time so… so dangerous, well, this… I mean, we are also always so ready to be enemies… uh… I don’t know, one always has to be very careful because… good, it’s all the same, well, good, yesterday there was, there was this thing which is decided, here it is: Monday March 3, from Monday March 3. Tuesday March 4, nothing more. I mean… indeed, this withdrawal, to me, seems to me almost more curious than the thing itself.
Deleuze: Yeah, so we are in agreement. I also find it very, very … Yes?
A woman student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: When did he say that?
The student: [Inaudible]
A student: I think there is something, but I don’t understand anything anymore. I don’t know if it was the [Inaudible] Council that reported to the police, that there were attacks [Inaudible] in the university, and that from there, it led to the interview [Inaudible] by France-Soir, then [Inaudible] by Le Figaro… or if it’s the police who are up to something… But I don’t get the impression that it was the police because it took Merlin [Inaudible], so what I’m guessing, if there’s the newspaper article first …
Another student: Yes, that’s it.
The previous student: It’s… it’s first, finally, the reaction…that was first… a reaction to the France-Soir article, then a certain number of… people who…, well, who worked… well… people… staff who complained to the Council and then it seems that Merlin, well…
Student: After the article …
The previous student: Yes. After the article, Merlin well… he went to the Council with a knife in hand, fine: it’s a fight, it’s a mess in the university and… [Inaudible]
Another student: No, all this is fiction because the journalists started asking people questions again… asking people questions, and people are answering… So, what did they do in Nanterre? That’s a story, they took all the events… [Inaudible] Vincennes, then they identified them for [Inaudible] an article, saying that Vincennes … [Inaudible] This was the article from France-Soir …
The previous student: Either way, it was the France-Soir article that started it all. There was a rather rotten reaction from the university authorities, who put in place these… these… these draconian measures that… that that… everyone knows …
A woman student: Well, on Thursday the 21st or so, there was a staff member who was assaulted by someone who was supposedly …
Another student: Drugged?
The woman student: … dealing … and who threatened him with a knife, or something … and it was from there that …
Deleuze: Yes.
Another student: I heard this story all the same because, if we are going to start thinking that each … [Inaudible] from France-Soir… there is someone powerful up top that moves into action to wipe out … [ Inaudible] this becomes delirious because France-Soir…
Deleuze: Are you kidding, you say “it’s delirium”, but for me, I see no madness in believing, as has been said and repeated a thousand times, that a phone call from a ministerial cabinet member might result in an article in France-Soir, that… it’s part… you must not, you must not invoke power like that. That’s how it has always been done at France-Soir.
The previous student: Okay, we agree. In this, it is possible, but then at that point, [Inaudible] surprising, this flawless synchrony, in that way … and, and the reaction … [Inaudible] you know? To this…
Deleuze: Good.
The student: … still! To imagine Merlin plotting: ok. To imagine that the Council is plotting: ok too. But to imagine they are plotting together!
Deleuze: And no, because there is something else… One can imagine… One can imagine a fourth thing that… that you aren’t taking into account; it’s that… they find themselves united for extremely different purposes. For example, it was already striking in 1977 that there was obviously, at the time of the campaign,[14] which spoke about an enormous drug trafficking in Vincennes, there were two possible political stances: there was the Council’s and the President’s stance saying, and even adding, saying: yes, yes, that’s frightening, and you don’t even know everything — which was still a very curious reaction from the university authority, eh… really they were adding to this –; or there was the … the other stance consisting in saying: just shut up (faites chier), there are no more drugs here than there are in Censier,[15] there are no more drugs here than elsewhere, so you must not … never denounce your neighbors, but hey… [Laughter]… I don’t know, it may not be visible anymore, because… well… Good. And already, at that time, we saw a kind of… of bizarre conjunction of university authorities, often on the Left, with the concerns of the Minister, in order to propel this campaign. There is no doubt that they have different goals, for example, when [Georges] Marchais says: the enemy is drugs, … Fine, he doesn’t exactly have the… the same … the same goals as the narcotics squad. … I’m like you, I prefer the goals of the narcotics squad, which seem less… good to me. In the end, if they overlap, that doesn’t mean they have the same goals. [Pause]
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: I don’t think that’s it. But it’s curious because, at the same time as drugs, for us, I mean, it’s… well, there are hardly any more, it does not exist anymore, let’s say, but at the same time, it ‘is precisely, well … an event, no, no, but, as we said, well … a … in the sense …
A student: It exists.
Claude: No … well, ok, if you will, an event, an event, that creates a certain effect, a noise, a very loud noise, and then after there’s fallout. The kinds of fallout are silence all the time, and then after the silence, I mean, sometimes we start to talk about it again. And here, it’s a bit like what is currently happening, that is, that drugs really are now the moment when, in all the suburbs, whether rich or poor suburbs, all the kids are taking drugs, and this is really the moment when every mother, every person in all of … in all of France, is really experiencing the problem drugs, whereas before, it was us who took drugs, and it was…, it was something like that, but the others didn’t think about it. Whereas, I mean now, it’s something that is part of their life now, I mean, exactly the same way mothers now decide to give their daughters their pill or whatever!
Deleuze: It’s true that it has become a municipal problem.
The woman student near Deleuze: Of course!
Deleuze: It has become a kind of municipal problem.
The woman student near Deleuze: It’s entirely a municipal problem. It’s no longer the problem of …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Were there… I don’t know, do you know, you? Were these security guards from the University Ministry (le recorat)?
A student: No. They were security guards hired at the level of …
Deleuze: That’s it. It’s very different, eh! Very different.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Hired at the level of…?
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The student: It’s linked, it’s linked to the University Ministry, right?
Deleuze: Of course, that’s the new threshold. That was the request to the University Ministry, yes, yes, yes.
The student: They are professionals, so …
Deleuze: As they say, as they say so well, yes, they are professionals, yes! Besides, they say, uh … the security guards have been requested by the Ministry, right?
Claude: Saint-Denis, … Saint-Denis is also affected at a municipal level; there, there’s a major campaign at Saint-Denis for the repression of the inhalation of fabric glue among high school students … [Laughter]
Deleuze: Ah yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes… No, no, it is true that what Claude just said is very correct, I believe. That … it’s not at all that the drug problem has indeed disappeared; it’s that it has become completely municipal. That is, this is at the moment when it no longer proposed within the university as head…, as head of… I don’t know what, it is at this moment that it once again gets launched and that… the new launch occurs that consists in saying: but all that is the university’s fault, and among others, at Paris-VIII.
The woman student near Deleuze: But because, in the minds of people, it comes from here.
Deleuze: Yes, yes.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes
The woman student near Deleuze: That is, the municipalities …
A student: It’s not really our problem, if we start discussing drugs, with Merlin …
Deleuze: It’s not our problem, but it helps us understand, in our muddle …
The woman student near Deleuze: Because the municipalities … [Inaudible]
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes …
The woman student near Deleuze: No, but all the municipalities, I believe, in Ville-d’Avray, in Versailles, the rich suburbs, it’s crazy, but… they only talk… the… the… the good women only talk about that.
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes …
The woman student near Deleuze: I mean that the municipalities are currently … thinking, as they are geographically located, that is, they only manage to think of it in relation to the capital, that is, if, if all the children of the municipalities are taking drugs, that’s because it comes from the capital! I mean, they themselves [the children] didn’t feel like doing drugs! If they take it, it’s because we provide it to them. So, I mean … as final outcome, it’s certain that there must be Vincennes or a place like that to …
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes …
The woman student near Deleuze: In the end, I know that in all the municipalities, … people are totally in favor of the cops being in Vincennes.
Deleuze: Mm… yes, yes, yes. So, what… Do you see other things …? Once again, in the very short term: if the matter of security guards comes back, which is the most visible matter, which is perhaps not the most important one, but which is the most visible, if this matter of security guards were relaunched by the Council, would you basically agree, do you see other things than the three… the three very small, immediate responses… that…, that I am proposing to you?
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: How do we practically recognize each other? At the front door?
Deleuze: Obviously, we meet again…, we’ll meet in front of… in front of the entrance.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
A student: I believe that if there is a mobilization, there will be no security guards. A mobilization should take place now. Now and not the day that Merlin decides to bring back guards.
Deleuze: So, in what form? What do we do before? Yes? What do we do before? Unless there is a protest to the Council, etc. Yes?
Another student: I believe that the move worked very well precisely… [Inaudible]… narcotics, unofficially, one can always denounce it. But when they are there, when the police are there, and it is authorized, there we are facing a problem. But we don’t even see it anymore because we feel like we have … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes …
The student: … security guards, if they’re going to come back …
Another student: If they come back, it doesn’t matter! If they come back, it doesn’t matter! The problem is, there is the … [Inaudible] police!
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The student: Yes, but it was there unofficially, that is, if you catch … [Inaudible] there unofficially, it can always be denounced, and we can ask: what is [Inaudible] …? From that moment onward … [Inaudible]
Another student: Everyone knew the police were there before, and we didn’t care in the slightest; everyone knows the police are here now, and we now have to care.
Deleuze: Ah listen, no, no, no. Now I think you’re wrong, I don’t know… I… I can’t think of it like that.
The student: When you say that the main … [Inaudible] was the security guards, you are still thinking …
Deleuze: I said the most visible.
The student: The most visible, of course!
Deleuze: No … me … where I don’t agree with what you just said is that, for me, there is a big, big difference, a big difference even in nature, between a state — we cannot simply say: ah well yes, there are cops, there have always been some since ‘68. That’s true, but what matters is … is — not at all the … the same, the same as the state of informers sneaking around the university who inform the police, or even police officers who … who … who are there in an unofficial capacity; or else this kind of formalization of the presence of a specialized squad, acting in a capacity, right, and … to which the university is open. This is nonetheless a fact … this is nonetheless a new fact.
The student: [Inaudible] what it demands from us [Inaudible]
Deleuze: So, as much as I vaguely see… small things, but… to be done immediately, if the matter of security guards is placed on the front burner… What is there to be done about this question of the [narcotics] squad, which is a whole other question?
A woman student: What if it was a provocation? To manage to…
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Ah, you think there is a link between the two! That there is some kind of … oh yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes…
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes …
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: What? I cannot hear. We can’t hear …
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: It’s good; let them come to Vincennes! And everyone’s imagining, I’m not sure what, that this is going on… well, let them come!
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Yes, no, but it’s crazy, this kind of argument, haa! We are only talking about this!
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, there, in fact, as we continue talking, nonetheless, some… some very small things become a little bit clearer, because it seems to me that from a little of all that has just been said there emerges, in fact, an operation … an operation easy to understand which would consist, just at the moment when … the drug problem is no longer a problem — assuming it is never has been one — is no longer primarily a university problem, that it has taken on a completely different aspect, that we can roughly call a municipal aspect, that it’s at this time that a movement is reconstituted denouncing the university and… and our university in particular as a supplier of drugs. So, in fact… What?
A student: [Inaudible] … the black sheep, we are kidnapping them [Inaudible] And so then, we see the reaction! [Inaudible]
Another student: But all that doesn’t tell us what is to be done, after all. What can we do? [Laughter] And not just at the Institute of Philosophy, here, but in Vincennes and elsewhere …
Deleuze: No, yes, yes, but …
The student: If we do something [Inaudible] this … it won’t have any impact!
Deleuze: We are starting from… what has been entrusted to us, namely that it is still not a bad thing to talk about it in each class (UV) to see what comes out of that. So, we provide ourselves with the framework, for example, of a class, of any class (UV): ours, right? And we tell ourselves: well what…, what can we do? So, it also depends on what is happening in the other classes at the same time … So, once again, this is where I am. I see in… very, well, I… this is not big, I see a small set of immediate responses to the matter of security guards; I don’t currently see… if… if they come back out … if… if … Yes, I do not see immediate responses to the presence of the [narcotics] squad.
Another student: I think that we see one, which remains to be applied, which is that of refusing to do … [Inaudible] Yesterday …
The woman student near Deleuze: … to refuse to do what?
The student: There were already some departments that had resumed their courses. [Inaudible] for example, and in English, that’s all I know, maybe there are others. It’s still extraordinary, that is, there could be cops there in the room, we would continue to teach … that’s it really …
A woman student: Well, good for them! [Laughter]
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, the threshold…, I can answer for myself, for example, in my own name, but in my own name, I depend on you, that is, it would be necessary that, her, we all agree. For me, … I tell myself this: for example … to refuse to teach because the squad is in the university and does not manifest itself in a visible way; that seems to me a bit like going on strike in a personal capacity, it is something meaningless. For me, the threshold would be… There would be two thresholds. There is one that is so big that for me it goes without saying. The biggest is that, either here or in any class at Vincennes, a squad member becomes identified as such, that is, makes an intervention, an interpellation, a search, etc., as you say. It is very unlikely to happen unless there is a set-up. If this is in the hallways and if it’s about a student from here, for me it’s the same threshold. If it concerns a student from another class, this depends more on you, there, this depends more on the aggregate, but I believe that it would also be the same unacceptable threshold.
So, in this regard, I am almost waiting … for me, the definition of when I would consider not having the conditions possible to do my course is that there would be an intervention into a class or at the exit of a class. So, obviously, what is .., the whole problem that you are posing remains: what happens if, for example, one evening, even when the university is closed, etc., there is an interpellation of a type that does not belong to the faculty, for example, what happens in this case? What do I do? There, I admit, I have much less of position prepared in advance because, at that point, I would also depend greatly on the reactions both from the students and from the other professors.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, sure, yes, that didn’t matter.
The student: [Inaudible] … from the narcotics squad: it comes, it says: so, you, what do you think?
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yeah … yeah … It’s not just the level of principles; once again, it’s also the question: what is to be done? Because, once again, to say, under these conditions, I’m not teaching, it’s … it’s like I was just saying, I’m going to strike. It seems to me … it’s still very different from if there is any student being taken into custody during a particular class being in session, or classes in general, where it seems there to me to be … another threshold really. So, in the second case, I have no problem; in the first case, it seems more complicated to me because it seems to me that … that we necessarily depend more on a general movement.
A student: [Inaudible]… ready to say in a concrete way that, if there are security guards, we are going elsewhere to do the course, outdoors, to try to show people that, above all, we are here…
Deleuze: Yes, that has an advantage, holding a course elsewhere, in my opinion, that has an advantage, since, at that point, it is not in a position in which I am going on strike.
The woman student near Deleuze: Yes.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, no, no.
A student: [Inaudible]
Another student: The security guards is a matter that comes from our location, that is, that it is university-related, it is indeed located on the university campus. So, we tell ourselves nonetheless, in Vincennes, this is a precedent, we have never had any security guards, [Inaudible] very well … [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: It may not even be … we don’t even know … who to answer …
A student: [Inaudible]
Another student: What’s going on? It’s because their impact is not the same!
Deleuze: Ah well, I agree … that’s why I’m asking … yes.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, it has disappeared, it’s very curious, this thing… which… and then everything disappears.
The student: … Because we know this matter is bogus (bidon)!
The woman student near Deleuze: They don’t even know it themselves …
Deleuze: Once again, the matter might not have been bogus.
The student: Three months ago, … [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: But silence is not less than …
Another student: [Inaudible]… has been developed, asking all of their departments to report all of their research for ten years. That is, there is a campaign, not only national at the level of France, but at the level of the whole European community, to solve what is currently called the drug problem, which has opposed several departments, the department of demography, of medicine, of sociology… and many other departments… [Inaudible] things like that. [Inaudible] This action, which is at Vincennes, must be the responsibility of, it must continue to be the responsibility of the University Council. Well, the drug problem can never really be solved. This is really a problem, they have stopped much more important projects this year …
Deleuze: Yes, but… our problem from the start, I think everyone has understood, is absolutely not the drug problem. Our problem from the start, including the presence of the [narcotics] squad, including the guards, etc., is a problem which concerns the normalization of Vincennes and… what is happening at Vincennes. Were it a traffic that wasn’t drugs, and some other traffic, the problem would be presented in the same way: it’s that this is the current pretext for this reorganization of Vincennes.
The student: … it’s knowing how much you can emphasize an action of this kind, if you really think about trying to see everything at once, it’s both going to paralyze the work at the university and put us in situations …
Deleuze: I don’t understand what… what he’s talking about?
The student: Merlin’s problem … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Ah yes, ah yes, ah yes, ah yes.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes.
A student: [Inaudible]
Another student: … it’s not about drugs.
Deleuze: No, completely, completely. But once again, the pseudo-drug problem does not apply at all as such, in everything that has been said from the start.
The student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, but anyway, I want to emphasize it again, yes.
Another student: The students’ problem … [Inaudible] It’s an attack on [Inaudible], it starts with foreign students, it will go through auditors, then it will go through non-graduates, then etc., up to the … [Inaudible] desired number of students in…
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes.
The student: … the elimination, of course, of departments that are not of interest at all …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The student: It’s not provocation anymore. That’s over: the provocation, they moved it. Now they are taking action.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The student: It’s over, even if he withdraws his formal complaint, it’s over; the prosecutor is not coming back … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: No, but that’s something else. Okay. It would nonetheless be something very, very important if the president withdrew his formal complaint … it would probably not save ethics, that goes without saying, but, if only for the future: it would be a very, very… very significant gain.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: So what I’m afraid of and what I don’t know, but I believe that… for the past eight days, what [François] Châtelet[16] has been greatly involved with, is: to know exactly what our, roughly, if I can call it that, our approach (courant) represents in relation to the whole of Vincennes? I believe and I would have liked to know … Is there no one in the history program here? I believe the history department produced protest texts. Does anyone know about the history department texts?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes? You read it?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes. Only, indeed, apart from this obvious means, which is: protest to the Council, protest of teachers to the council …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, the philosophy department wrote a letter, yes. Only on security guards, yes.
Another student: Yesterday in class we started to write two letters relating to the narcotics squad and the formal complaints, and… asking them if… [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Oh good! Oh good. Oh good. Yesterday then? Did he plan on sending it…?
A woman student: He took it immediately …
Deleuze: Ah, he took it to Merlin! Alright, yes.
The student: The first letter. For the second … [Inaudible] it was taken to Merlin. But then we decided … [Inaudible] we started to write two letters, relating to the narcotics squad, to the police, and relating to the formal complaints that were made against foreigners.
Deleuze: Good. What about letters to the Council, then? Or to Merlin.
The student: Addressed to Council.
The woman student: And I think the newspaper, too. Because…
Deleuze: Yes, yes.
The woman student: … because … [Inaudible] met a reporter, and he said… [Inaudible] gave the letter …
Deleuze: That’s it. A guy from AFP [Agence Presse-France], yes, yes.
A student: … It’s very funny because the people… [Inaudible] who absolutely wanted the squad’s withdrawal, there are people who [Inaudible]… it’s always the same, who want to make revolution, who want hands to be raised, to go out and demonstrate….
The woman student near Deleuze: Well, let them go ahead and demonstrate …
The student: … this was yet another Assembly that was completely screwed up, because once Merlin came, he said: in any case, I’ve decided this and that, everyone left …
Deleuze: That, …, in fact, they go around… it is not very much… I mean, the protest to the Council, on the one hand, it is not much: it has seen others, the Council, and, on the other hand, the downside is that it is quite likely that it will show that the protesters are a minority after all. So, is there not something else? Is there nothing else to be done?
The student: Yes, if the protest is really supported by the students …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
A student: What was weird, at this General Assembly …
Deleuze: Wait, just a second, eh …
The student: What’s very weird is that they put a tremendous amount of energy into going to get the Council, and then once the Council was there, and Merlin said he was only accepting the first point and that he did not accept the other two, there was, there was no protest, well, I did not hear anything… people came out and it was finished.
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student: In the end, you didn’t protest!
The student: But the “you” is “they”! [Laughter]
The previous woman student: No, but listen, on the whole, no one protested, there you go.
Deleuze: Yes, you were saying… what?
The previous student: [Inaudible] … There is a principle at [Inaudible], this is Vincennes, a university for everyone. [Pause]
Deleuze: Yes, for everyone, that means non-graduates, foreigners, auditors. We agree on that. But …, well, visitors, they are auditors, or well … free strollers, really … strollers.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, in particular, in this text by Merlin, one sentence, gives me … almost shivers down my spine, because, following all the decisions announced, the text ends with: “finally, a large amount of information will be directed outside”, by whom since… well, then…“once these measures are implemented, to make it known that the university is fulfilling its responsibilities”. So, in fact, “the university fulfills its responsibilities”, that means, it seems to me, that means to the government, more or less: we are not pursuing the same goals as you, but we are completely in agreement. In any case, we are completely in agreement on the means. So… hopf… good.
But then, I quite agree on all the point on principles, in particular the one that you recall, but, once again, we fall back into the question: what, as for …, what immediately regarding the squad and…. regarding the formal complaints? I’m saying something about the remark one of you made concerning the usefulness of teachers intervening in newspapers. In my opinion, that’s been screwed up for years, right? It was still possible … I think, five, six years ago. Today, I swear to you that, in my opinion anyway, that has become impossible because the newspapers have radically changed their structure. If you take a newspaper like Le Monde, there isn’t even the equivalent of what in the old Le Monde was the “free opinion” section, where a poor guy gave his opinion. And it was framed, there was the title “free opinion”, there were no commentaries. Newspapers have invented new techniques that I think are very… self-evident… not great, but very, very effective. Le Monde has invented, for example, its particularly grotesque second page which delights everyone … every time we read it, or which is really … the idea as a dumping ground …, like a dumping ground for a newspaper. Fine. Suppose somebody gets something published, gets something published … They stick it on that second page. Of course, any example … Châtelet, Lyotard or me, [if] we managed to get something [Inaudible] on the current Vincennes question. It was obvious that, we will be stuck [on nous foutra] … [Interruption of the recording] [92: 42]
Part 3
Deleuze: … That’s it, in my opinion, there is only one way to intervene in newspapers now, it is in the paid form… in the paid advertisement form. But it is very, very expensive. On the one hand, it’s very expensive, on the other hand, I’m not sure it’s very, very effective. Yes?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes… They are not forced to since it only merits the right of reply if Lyotard was taken to task…
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: They won’t publish it.
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: … They will not publish it. It’s only Merlin who can, and as you might expect, he won’t. [Laughter]
A student: L’Aurore’s comment this morning is still …
Deleuze: What’s it saying, L’Aurore?
The student: It’s unimaginable, it’s unbelievable … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: What [Inaudible]
The student: Vincennes, basically … [Inaudible] Vincennes [Inaudible] rat hole, or something like that … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yeah. Well, good, good … No, I think it is possible, that … to hold a course … in … in a showdown, to hold a course elsewhere. But again, that can’t last long, and …
A student: Here I have a great plan.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, and it’s not without danger, you’re right, it’s not without danger.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes. Do you have a plan?
The previous student: We do, we create a scoop, we create a scoop …
The woman student near Deleuze: Merlin smoking!
The student: In front of the reporters, obviously and … and trying to find the people from the narcotics squad, we take Merlin, we tie him up, we put a gram of something [onto him], and we hand him over to narcotics squad. He is the originator …
A student: … The drugs in his pockets.
The previous student: And we do something [Inaudible] like the Italians.
A student: [Inaudible]
A woman student: What are you going to do?
The previous student: That will be what it is. We’ll see for the rest …
The woman student: This is how we took it …
The previous student: We’ll see for the rest.
Another student: Ah, that’s crazy. I don’t believe it. [She says it with a laugh]
Deleuze: So in fact, the… the thing, in fact, that… someone just reminded me, on the other hand, there are these texts which are in preparation, here, by Châtelet… but, there, once again, this is simply the small channel, so it consists in giving texts to the Council, texts of protest… Yes, yes, yes, yes…
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Make leaflets, ah, that! Yeah …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: No, but already the distribution of leaflets at Vincennes would be very, very good. Has it been done or not, here, before? Were there a lot of leaflets or not?
A student: I think the question is for us … I think the question …
Another student: There is a demonstration on the 14th.
The previous student: I think the question is not to answer the problem raised by the Council where Merlin talks about leaflets. The proof given to us yesterday is that even with… very strong pressure from the students, [Inaudible]… and even [Inaudible] Council … this same Council could not decide [Inaudible] a single point. [Inaudible]… I don’t know but… you don’t know? The door was broken, people were coming in through the window, exiting through the windows … the Council was stormed … so much so that the discussion was cut off, so I think the leaflet issue was is completely absurd, it will have no effect….
The previous student: What’s a little annoying is that there isn’t a real backlash against the narcotics squad and [Inaudible] third is suing, you see? Whereas the security guards really caused an action, you see?
Deleuze: Yes, that’s very important, yes, yes … What time is it?
The woman student near Deleuze: One fifteen? One twenty… Yes. One thirty … half past one.
The student: It means that people, even inside the university, are not really concerned by this matter, and even if they are concerned, they prefer to do nothing about it because … in all … in addition, they are not… they are not [Inaudible] like here, you see, for them, when they come back to the university, it is to go to the department of literature, or American English [Inaudible] In the long run, that’s not encouraging really. They are not very encouraged. I even believe there is even a problem. Now if there’s a problem, you’ve got to talk to people, you know. With people at the university, [Inaudible] if you don’t talk to them, there’s no point …
A student: This is exactly what you are saying: they succeeded through normalization, exams, the … all that to demobilize people about…
Georges Comtesse: That, for example, is a very important problem, because in the ra … on the radio, in the newspapers that appeared almost a year ago, there are articles that are written, where they almost tend to say: now in universities and in high schools, high school and college students are disciplined, normalized, passive; they consume knowledge; they want work, they want their future. So, [Inaudible] for example… Giscard,[17] the Secours, with [Lionel] Stoléru[18] and all his clique were speaking in the Sorbonne amphitheater, for…
Deleuze: [to someone near him] That was great.
Comtesse: … to bestow awards on the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France.[19] Giscard, he himself delivered after, after, after, after precisely, a short speech in response to Lévi-Strauss; he said: to intellectuals, I am assigning you a critical function, it is your job to criticize, but provided that you are realistic, [Laughter] provided that realism is the line of your criticism. After what he said in front of everyone assembled, the intellectuals and the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, here is the family photo of France in 1980. [Laughter] In other words, in other words, at the Sorbonne, even in the large amphitheater of the Sorbonne, where there had been so much agitation and so much tumult in May 68, there is really normalization, even in the large amphitheater of the Sorbonne. So why not think, based on this, that a University Council here, in Vincennes, can test the students’ capacity for resistance?
Deleuze: Yes, certainly, yes …
Comtesse: Why, if precisely they are as well normalized, trained, domesticated as elsewhere! In other words, their attempt failed, since there were forty of them arguing at most with security guards, so they are going backwards.
Deleuze: Yes, oh okay, yes …
Comtesse: Maybe it’s to test our resilience.
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: [to someone next to him] Poor Merlin. [Laughter]
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Anyway… all of this… there is still something: the extreme importance… the extreme importance that everyone who can be there on the day of the Council meeting. It’s the 15th, isn’t it? You tell me.
The woman student near Deleuze: Saturday the 15th.
Deleuze: It’s the 15th: you have to be … you have to be … you all have to be there.
Another student: [Inaudible]
Another student: A Saturday!
A woman student: It’s a Saturday on purpose so that we …
A student: There you go. Also, a point perhaps, that we have to put pressure so that the Council meeting might be held on a weekday, because Saturday is a disaster … [Inaudible]
The woman student: This is absurd!
The student: … So, this is something they can think about too! I think, it’s prepared carefully for the purpose, right there …
A student: Oh yes!
Deleuze: Yes, even, yes!
Another student: They are not idiots, those guys!
The previous student: If we’re mobilized, we’ll be on Monday too. If we are mobilized before, we will be on a Monday. That is, people will have… will… have time to think Sunday to act on Monday.
A student: [Inaudible] no question … I think …
The previous student: I think there was a comrade who had proposed a rather interesting thing: it is to put on a radio, in the end, to put loudspeakers here at the university, to inform people daily and to really present the problem. I think that is … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes. Anyway, again, even if the meeting is kept on Saturday the 15th, eh, even if it remains on … a Saturday, I think it’s essential, essential to be there! Yes! [Pause]
Another student: Good, but that is, the danger is that taking into account, if you will, the population of Vincennes who are workers all the same, who work [Inaudible] rest, Sunday being nonetheless this… it’s going to end up in a real catastrophe which, in that way, will free the hands of the Council, [Inaudible] Merlin [Inaudible] what he wants, to take back quite simply the decisions which were voted. Then there will be no more changes because I experienced it yesterday with all the pressure that … that we exerted, well … it didn’t work anyway …
Another student: Because people were confused, they didn’t know what they were really talking about…
The previous student: Yes, they did, they did, they did. It was agreed not to dissociate the three points!
Another student: [Inaudible]
Another student: [Inaudible] during these two weeks, we can… we can put pressure… [Inaudible]
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: No, but the pressures, the pressures … By dint of talking about pressures quite simply, we no longer know which one we are talking about, because there are pressures of all kinds. There is, for example …, we are told that there is a very specific pressure to be exerted, and in what form to demand that the Council does not meet on a Saturday … Fine, that is already a type of pressure. This is very different from the additional pressure on the content of Council decisions. But there is this problem indeed of Saturday.
The student who had spoken of mobilizing: [Inaudible] of the meeting on Saturday is not to be allowed to go on like that [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Obviously
Another student: All the bourgeois who go away for the weekend, they won’t be there, well, so much the better!
The previous student: Exactly.
The other woman student: Not all the bourgeois who go away on weekends are here, so much the better! So much the better! Ah yes!
The woman student near Deleuze: Exactly.
Deleuze: Yes, it would be… it would be… it would be good, if it were absolutely true what you’re saying, but among the people who go away on weekends, there are some guys who are not bourgeois, you know what I mean… [Laughter] Yes, but we always come back into the same little circle: what is to be done, for example, to demand, a specific point, that the meeting not take place on Saturday, what to do except address this to the Council? Which will say that… It [the Council] is free from its agenda, it will invent all the reasons to say that… that… that… it cannot meet on any other day than Saturday, etc., etc.
A student: They are prevented from meeting.
Deleuze: So, we prevent them from meeting.
The woman student near Deleuze: So, everyone is coming on Saturday. [Laughter]
Deleuze: So, again, everyone has to come on Saturday.
The woman student near Deleuze: It’s completely silly
Another student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Oh, yes, the occupation … the occupation is enough.
Another student: [Inaudible]
Various voices: [Inaudible]
The student: Committing oneself at that level by wanting … by wanting to send the message to the Council [Inaudible] you have to see, this is a dilemma … it’s up to …
Deleuze: Well yes, but listen, we all agree on that because, when we talk about a message sent to the Council, it is precisely to say: if that’s all we have, it is laughable. Yes, that, everyone agrees on this point …
The previous student: [Inaudible]
A student: Merlin, he’s looking for a fight.
A woman student: Merlin is waiting for this.
The student: And he’s waiting for this.
Deleuze: I think that …
The woman student near Deleuze: So, we have to go to the meeting.
Deleuze: I think that… that, in any case, that the Council, as we said, there is not much reason… There are some [Inaudible], but that’s all.
The student: The Council currently, in relation to that, these two problems, that’s not the problem! It’s not to the Council that the message should be sent … I don’t know. If someone is to receive the message, if it’s about sending a message to someone … [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Well… Merlin, isn’t he on the Council?
Deleuze: Yes…
The student: … because, talking to Merlin, like that: mm, Merlin… For all classes (UVs), I think for all classes that meet [Inaudible] to see what can be done, we have the right to… [Inaudible]
Deleuze: One has to go through…?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, but concretely, what does that mean?
The previous student: Concretely, it’s very simple! It means going door to door … [Inaudible] or even making leaflets … You have to see … to have imagination [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Aah, imagination, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
The student: The previous times, remember, in the [Inaudible] case, it was a case that started because there was … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, but why are you saying that? We’ve all been here for two hours …
The woman student near Deleuze: … Not having imagination … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: … it seems like we’re very interested in it so …, at least those who are there… Yeah?
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, I’m struck, especially what proves you right, is that … usually there are a lot more people. It’s already a little worrying, but there are a lot of guys who must have said “well yes”, a lot of auditors who must have told themselves “it’s not going well today …” yes, yes, yes .
A student: [Inaudible]
The woman student near Deleuze: Noise is a parasite.
Deleuze: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: [Jean-François] Lyotard, what day does he have his class? Thursday, right?[20]
The woman student near Deleuze: Thursday evening.
Deleuze: Thursday night, eh? I’m looking for points of… connection, where we could therefore… So, there are Châtelet’s text which were… outlined yesterday. There will be Lyotard class on Thursday. I’m saying, what do we have as possible meeting points between now and the 15th, eh? … Thus, it’s urgent, indeed urgent to find… to find means to exert this first pressure, … that the Council meeting occur on a Saturday. If it does happen on a Saturday, it’s even more urgent to be extremely, extremely numerous.
A woman student: We talked about … sending the messages to the Council … to the University Council, to the Council of [Inaudible], wouldn’t it be more efficient to contact each member?
Deleuze: Personally?
The student: Personally. And ask each of these members to explain themselves to the department to which they belong. I think it would be useful.
Deleuze: Except, I guess that certain departments will exculpate them up front, that is, they’ll say they don’t accept this procedure.
The student: No, I don’t think all students from … from … even normalized departments would agree! I don’t think so: we will trust the students if we don’t trust the heads of the departments. I think that kind of … anonymous collectivity, “The Council,” that we’re speaking to is nothing at all. But each of the members, that has another [Inaudible]
Deleuze: That’s right. It’s true, it’s true, it’s true.
A student: I think that to speak of the members of the personnel, one by one: well, there too it is… it is… it is to fall into error, because the members of the personnel, they also form… I do not know, microstructures within the Council itself, they are well structured …
Deleuze: Yes, yes.
The student: … they belong to parties and unions, they have known political positions!
The woman student: But they are very embarrassed …
The student: … so it’s a well-woven spider’s web that … it’s really hard to … undo, really, to …
The woman student: It’s not so difficult. Because there is a personality of each person who is not so proud to be … to be singled out and to have …
A student: [Inaudible]
The student: That is, they are even sensitive about being uncomfortable … [Inaudible]
A student: [Inaudible]
Another student: But there’s no contradiction between the [Inaudible] politics, for example, because these are organisms … [Inaudible] Especially since Merlin doesn’t want to give in. If there is not a lot of pressure on the Council, it will not give in. [Inaudible] The aggregate of the organizations that are represented on the board, [Inaudible] totally agree with … [Inaudible] You shouldn’t focus too much on Merlin … [Inaudible]
The student: There you go, I think again that saying that party members are just people like you and me; this is … this is completely wrong! This is a fierce struggle of tendencies within; the proof is that it’s is no … it is no coincidence that a particular tendency, a particular requirement, are made higher up, are always decided according to the balance of power. It is not… we must not delude ourselves, these are not people like that… caught, like that, for example, in the department, if there is a political game, a real political interest which means that …
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes.
The student: … as usual, in a well-structured way.
Another student: But there are also things, the real facts speak for themselves, for example, look at Merlin [Inaudible] it seems, on the idea of staying in Vincennes. [Inaudible] even though there is a pull from the Council called … [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes.
The student: So that’s good.
Deleuze: This is the minority of the Council.
The student: These people …
Deleuze: But strangely enough, it was a guy from that minority that came …
The student: Okay … Wait a minute, wait a minute. So, it’s … so there are people who are in favor of staying in Vincennes.
Deleuze: No, since our question is: do those who say they want to stay in Vincennes believe it?
The student: Well that’s it!
Deleuze: I am inclined to think they do not believe it …
The student: Because they don’t take it upon themselves to say: we don’t believe it. It’s up to the students whether they believe it or not. Not in the Administrative Council.
A woman student: Or stay …
The student: In Vincennes, it was never done differently.
The woman student: Or stay in Vincennes and normalize ourselves completely.
The student: That’s why you can’t … You can’t accuse the Council of [Inaudible] publicity if you don’t see how it works. The Council, it has [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes.
The student: Because at the time when …
A student: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes. [Pause]
A student: There, what is called a minority, that is, [Inaudible] they think they are a majority. That is, [Inaudible] they’re the ones who vote anyway [Inaudible]
A student: [Inaudible]
The student: What you have to see is that Merlin has a very radical tactic of [Inaudible], well, he [Inaudible] on the right or on the left depending on the circumstances, [Inaudible ] he recently relied on [Inaudible] Vincennes, [Inaudible] to stay here [Inaudible]… supported Merlin against the inter-union who were ready to go to Saint-Denis, in particular, whether it was the Communists who had released a leaflet from November, for [Inaudible], for the transfer to Saint-Denis, but… and whether it’s the right… [Inaudible] the English department, which also was in favor of going to Saint-Denis [Inaudible]. And that there was … an alliance was formed between an inter-union minority, the [Inaudible] and then Merlin, well … [Inaudible]
Another student: I suggest that we draw some conclusions, because …
Deleuze: Okay. Okay. Well… well… ah ah…. For me, the conclusions… only the conclusions that… that I would propose, are: so, even if we think that it is not very effective, to keep abreast, that…, that, I would do this with respect to Châtelet, the state of the texts and the use of the texts… which were projected in his… yesterday with him; to see if … there are leaflets to be created from these. Second point: the possibility of … meeting at Lyotard’s class, which gives us … two, three days, I imagine. In two, three days, we can have… an element can emerge, all that. It seems to me that there must be a lot of possible meeting points. So, the possibility, at the time of Lyotard’s class, and there, what … what will his class propose? It’s important by Thursday, or by… to find, or look for or… try to conceive means of action to demand… that the Council not meet on the 15th, that the meeting not take place on a Saturday. Finally, at whatever moment it occurs, really, to go there, everyone to go. I mean, immediately, these are … these are the things that I see.
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Even so, it would be better for everyone, for … well, for us, if this Council did not take place on a Saturday, if it was possible …
Various voices: [Inaudible]
Deleuze: Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. Okay well… yes.
[Sound of chairs] [End of the session] [1: 58: 58][21]
Deleuze: Well, we didn’t get any work done!
The woman student near Deleuze: No.
Deleuze: So, tell me … [End of transcription]
Notes
[1] Certain aspects of what Deleuze and the students say regarding the Vincennes situation finds an enlarged contextual explanation in chapter 19, “Deleuze at Vincennes” in François Dosse’s Gilles Deleuze & Félix Guattari. Intersecting Lives, translation by Deborah Glassman (New York : Columbia University Press, 2010) [original French published in 2007]. The move of the entire Paris-VIII at Vincennes operation from Vincennes (east of Paris) to Saint-Denis (north of Paris) – referred to in the discussion as “the transfer” – was announced by the Minister of Universities, Alice Saunier-Seïté, in June 1978, and the transfer would take place in 1980, thus starting in the Fall semester following this very seminar. On the atmosphere on the campus during Deleuze’s years there, see Dosse, pp. 347-357 (French text: pp. 412-418).
[2] From the start of Deleuze’s seminar, he attracted a large group of non-registered students, auditeurs libres or course auditors.
[3] UV is the abbreviation for “unité de valeur”, or academic credit strictly speaking, with at least two senses: on one hand, the UV is the collected set of course requirements constituting part of a university exam, mostly the course work for which one received the UV (or UVs); on the other hand, and this is the usage employed throughout this discussion, the UV refers to the course itself from which one will receive the “unité de valeur” (or credit).
[4] The use of “normalisation” and “normaliser” (normalize) in this context seems to suggest the steps taken either by the entire institution or by the individual units (that is, the departments) that constitute the institution (and that Deleuze seems to designate at one point as the “normalizers” [les normalisants]), to come into conformity with the global university requirements imposed by the State. Given that the professors and students had no choice regarding the “transfer,” “se normaliser” (normalizing oneself) seems to be necessary but nonetheless disdained because of its inherent coercion.
[5] At the time of this discussion, L’Humanité was the newpaper of the French Communist Party.
[6] Pierre Merlin was president of the University of Paris VIII-Vincennes from 1976 to 1980. Although he is presented in this discussion as being responsible for the policing actions contested by Deleuze and the students, he opposed the Minister of Universities, Alice Saunier-Seïté, and her (and the government’s) project to destroy the Vincennes campus and move the site and activities to Saint-Denis in northern Paris. He resigned from his position the very year of this seminar in protest over the finality given to the Minister’s political decision.
[7] Georges Marchais, general secretary of the PCF, the French Communist Party, from 1972 to 1994.
[8] France-Soir was a very conservative French daily newspaper that went bankrupt in 2012, then was started again as an online tabloid. Further on in the discussion, references will be made to Le Figaro and L’Aurore, also conservative newspapers in the same era. As for Le Monde, this is France’s fairly centrist journal of record.
[9] Claude Frioux was the president of the University before Pierre Merlin’s election.
[10] Jacques Mesrine, a French criminal who operated in several European nations as well as in Canada, had in fact been declared “enemy number one” (most wanted criminal) in France at the start of the 1970s. Above all, see the biographical films in two parts, “L’Instinct de mort” and “L’Ennemi numéro 1”, or the English title for both, “Mesrine”, by Jean-François Richet, released in 2008.
[11] Paul Virilio’s texts cited by Deleuze and Guattari in A Thousand Plateaus corresponding to the points raised in the discussion are Speed and Politics (New York: Semiotext(e), 1986; Paris : Galilée, 1977) and L’insécurité du territoire (Paris: Stock, 1976; no translation).
[12] Normally, one would expect Claire Parent to be seated near Deleuze, but her voice in not heard at all in this session.
[13] The Cartoucherie at Vincennes is a former factory for armament and gunpowder fabrication situated in the Vincennes woods, near the campus, reconverted in 1970 by Ariane Mnouchkine as a theater location.
[14] This probably refers to the municipal elections that took place in France in March 1977.
[15] Censier is another French university campus in the heart of Paris, University of Paris-III.
[16] Besides his role as a French philosopher, François Châtelet was Deleuze’s friend as well as the department head of philosophy at Paris VIII-Vincennes from 1970 (with Foucault’s departure) to his death in 1985.
[17] As a reference point, this seminar takes place under the conservative political government of Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, French president from 1974 to 1981.
[18] Lionel Stoléru was an economic advisor in Giscard d’Estaing’s government.
[19] The Meilleurs Ouvriers de France is a designation for a competitive award granted across all trades – from baking to metalworking, to name but two among at least a hundred – within the individual trade elites and granted formally by the President of the Republic. On the Meilleurs Ouvriers de France, see the documentary, “Kings of Pastry”, by Chris Hegedus and D.A. Pennebaker (2010).
[20] Jean-François Lyotard was teaching his philosophy courses in the same department as Deleuze.
[21] The few lines that follow the end of the cassette belong to the co-transcription by Annabelle Dufourcq and Mariana Carrasco Berge, not to the recording available on YouTube or on Web Deleuze.
For archival purposes, the transcription of this seminar by Annabelle Dufourcq took place starting in 2011 with the support of a Purdue University College of Liberal Arts grant. The augmented transcription (completed in September 2020) is based on the heroic efforts of Annabelle Dufourcq and Mariana Carrasco Berge to render faithfully this difficult discussion, with additional access to the excellent revision by Florent Jonery (in May 2020) at Web Deleuze. The translation was completed in September 2020, with updates to the translation and transcription completed in June-July 2023 and a new description in September 2023.