Students at the University of Bordeaux’s Montesquieu campus voted on November 9, 2026, to demand the immediate renaming of two amphitheatres: Henri Vizioz and Joseph Lajugie.
The assembly, which gathered over 2,000 students, identified archival evidence linking both former deans to the administrative machinery of the Vichy regime.
Campus Mobilization Targets Vichy Legacy
The decision follows decades of tension regarding how the university addresses its history during the German Occupation. While the institution previously renamed one lecture hall in 2017 to honor Joseph Benzacar—a Jewish professor of political economy who died at Auschwitz—the presence of the Vizioz and Lajugie names remains a focal point of student protest, as reported by Le Poing Levé.
While the university describes Joseph Benzacar simply as a victim of Nazi ideology, critics point out that this framing ignores the specific, documented role of the Bordeaux faculty in creating the bureaucratic infrastructure that led to the identification and deportation of Jewish students and faculty members.
⚖️ Université de Bordeaux : la faculté de droit continue d’honorer des juristes du régime de Vichy La faculté conserve des amphis aux noms d’anciens professeurs ayant participé à Vichy. 2 000 étudiants réunis en AG ont réaffirmé qu'il faut les débaptiserhttps://t.co/6XjuMvWLxo
Henri Vizioz and the Doctrine of National Revolution
Archival records detail how Henri Vizioz, a professor of public law, integrated Vichy ideology into the academic life of the university. By October 1940, Vizioz was already using his platform to urge students to become “good workers of this national revolution,” a phrase directly inspired by Marshal Pétain.
Vizioz was a founding member of the “Friends of the Marshal” in Bordeaux and later served as a dean who represented the faculty in full regalia during ceremonies celebrating the regime. His legal scholarship from 1942 also argued that the “quality of being Jewish” should be formally integrated into French civil status, providing a legal veneer for the regime’s antisemitic policies.
Joseph Lajugie and the Bureaucracy of Spoliation
Joseph Lajugie’s involvement was rooted in the prefecture of the Gironde, where he was recruited on October 28, 1940. He served as the head of the Information and Propaganda Service before moving to the prefecture’s cabinet, where he managed the technical aspects of the “Aryanization” of Jewish-owned assets.
Lajugie’s administrative work included facilitating the census of Jewish students at the university. According to Le Poing Levé, these lists were communicated to the Service for Jewish Affairs, directly contributing to the tracking and eventual deportation of students. Despite this history, Lajugie returned to academia post-war, serving as dean of the law faculty from 1962 to 1968.
University Reflects on Assembly's Vote
The university administration has stated it is “disposed to and engaged in reflecting and exchanging” on the matter following the assembly’s vote.
The question of whether the university will honor the demand for renaming remains unresolved. As of November 10, 2026, no concrete timeline for the removal of the names has been provided by the university leadership.
