It was quite naturally that the end of the Song of Roland came back to my mouth when I announced the closure of the said Research Center. Not by verbal inflation, but simply because, forty years after founding it, it seemed necessary to me to close it by a voluntary act, sparing it a decline from which it would no longer recover. Others than myself, relying on its productions, will tell the tale of this center. For my part, I would like to stop here at the last moment, the one where I said "that's enough!"

Looking through my archives, those at least that remained at my home, since the largest part is now at the IMEC, I realized that no administrative order from the university president (let alone the Ministry) had recorded its creation in 1971 (it was then Raymond Las Vergnas). I conclude, therefore, that it is useless for any instance to take the responsibility of officially declaring the cessation of its activities as of December 31, 2012.

But, I will be told, why did you insist on liquidating this research institute, if one can express it thus?

Here's why: since I officially retired on October 1, 2003, neither the UFR of French and Latin Language and Literature of Paris III, nor the university councils, nor its president, have found the means to provide for my replacement by a master-level teacher-researcher capable of taking over. More, various associate professors who worked in the team have also retired or gone to another university or even on long-term leave without being further replaced so as to maintain a minimum of activities characterizing this center. Year after year, it has become increasingly bloodless, to the point that at the date of my decision, it no longer counted but a single tenured member.

I accuse the various university councils of having neither been able, nor wanted, to perpetuate a research center of national value and international reputation, by default of vision and lack of responsibility.

It is not for lack of having warned the governing bodies, nor of having drawn attention to the needs of research in this field. I even pushed self-denial (since everyone knows that this qualification offers no advantage, neither material nor even symbolic) to the point of soliciting three times the title of professor emeritus, which left plenty of time to appoint a replacement. Better still, having to settle an internal conflict, the Scientific Council of Paris III considered taking measures against emeritus status, obviously contrary to the law. I had to threaten them with an administrative court appeal for these puppets to be put back in their place.

Let's be clear: there is no longer, in France, a university research center responsible for coordinating and conducting investigation in the field of surrealism, considered as a whole, combining both literary and artistic creation, philosophy, history of ideas, expression in all languages.

Whose fault is it?

To the governing bodies of the CNRS who, too preoccupied with their own survival, even rejoiced to see a proper unit disappear (the GDR that I had managed to maintain for four years), which allowed them to show that they were capable of reforming since they were closing a unit, with a clearly determined program, in favor of a vague ensemble.

To the governing bodies of the University of Paris III, I have said it, who did not even lift a finger upon learning of my decision.

To the National Research Agency which has no vision of the needs of the community, and which, under the pretext of "rejuvenation", favors with considerable means (four times the annual operating budget of a lab) any program, as long as it is presented by an individual (and not a team), without worrying about his training within a solid and experienced team. Let there be no mistake, I am not criticizing the idea of favoring the work of young researchers, nor the legitimate concern of preparing the succession. I simply note that it was done backwards: instead of drawing up a table of the country's research needs and making coherent calls for tenders, we sprinkle and squander the credits. I rejoice to learn that the days of this instance are numbered. But will we stop forming institutions without democratic legitimacy, without scientific competence?

To the multiple evaluation bodies, of the AERES type, which, changing their rules at each session, ask for a report every four years, an interim report at the end of two years, which never coincides with the duration of contracts, so that teams devote six months each time to developing reports that will never be read. Under the pretext that one must not, in one's reports, find twice as many researchers as there are tenured members in France (one forgets that any normally constituted individual is capable of conducting quality research simultaneously within two units, I proved it by founding and animating the Hubert de Phalèse team in parallel with the Surrealism Center) they decide one day that one must not count in the team the teacher-researchers external to the host university. Now this center, I conceived it, from the beginning, as a network, including both colleagues from Île de France universities and from the provinces and even from abroad. These same bodies decide, by authority, to erase from our reports the secondary school colleagues who, their full-time service accomplished and even more, intend to pursue research within a team and bring us considerable help.

Let's be frank to the end: the center itself bears some responsibility in this self-dissolution. Not the center, but those who, bowing to ministerial ukases, have gradually erased their name from the list of active members, those who frequented it insofar as it could favor their "career plan", those who while frequenting it assiduously, receiving with delight the weekly information, never wrote a line of review.

I once directed the University of Paris III for five years. I measure the weight of friction forces, of resistances of all kinds, and it is not here that I will make the trial of an institution in principle directed by its own teacher-researchers. All the same! Alongside admirable devotions, nothing has changed since I left my functions by a voluntary decision. What to say about administrative heaviness, the weight of management, the absence of a research computer service, etc.? The problem is not individual, it is systemic. Too late to remedy it.

I close the door while preserving the image of a center that has trained very many researchers, published work in multiple fields, which has created databases, a reference Internet site, a French discussion list, etc. As it is said at the heart of the Surrealist Manifesto: "What I have done, what I have not done, I give it to you."

March 13, 2013

Henri BÉHAR