RevUE of Agnieszka Pasieka’s Simone Veil Talk proposed by Lino Juhel

« A Tale of Two Simones: On Activism, Rights and the Right », march 20, 2025 with Agniezka Pasieka (Université de Montréal).

Agnieszka Pasieka, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the Université de Montréal, who previously studied at research centers at Yale and Stanford, took the stage on March 26, 2025, at the Jean Monnet Centre of Montreal to deliver the Simone Veil Talk, presenting her research under the title “A Tale of Two Simones: On Activism, Rights and the Right.”

Over the course of her presentation, she first discussed the work of the Two Simones: Simone Veil, or “Madame Simone,” a French politician and renowned human rights advocate, especially for women’s and prisoners’ rights, and the first woman to preside over the European Parliament; and Simone Weil, or “Comrade Simone,” a philosopher with more left-leaning political views, who focused her activism on connecting with everyday citizens (for example, in factories), aiming to demonstrate that such lived experience is the most effective way to understand human beings. While these two figures differ in many respects, they are united by one key theme: activism. According to Agnieszka Pasieka, activism transcends political partisanship and enables progress by overcoming simplistic prejudices and overly conservative thinking.

Following this introduction, Pasieka delved into her research on the contemporary appeal of the far right, organized around three pillars: “Roots, Rights and Needs, Attention.” After analyzing how both Simones engaged with these pillars in their own thought, she explained how the far right, consciously or not, draws upon the same elements to win citizens over—offering what she calls “perverted answers to valid questions.”

She then illustrated this with a compelling case study from Milan, where a far-right community group organizes food bank services for the most disadvantaged—those said to be “forgotten by the left,” which is accused of having abandoned the people and social support in favor of pure politics. These food banks serve multiple purposes: they allow young far-right activists to express their right/need to channel their anger at a political system they feel alienated from; they provide them with the attention they seek by integrating them into a social movement; and they reconnect them with national roots by helping Italians in need—emphasizing the Italian origin of those who use the food bank.

At the same time, these initiatives meet the rights and needs of the beneficiaries, who have the right to stable living conditions and the basic need to feed themselves, while also receiving personal attention through this volunteer-based assistance and being reconnected with their Italian identity through integration into a local community. This strategy, Pasieka argues, addresses popular grievances and explains why many citizens and activists identify with these far-right movements—unlike with the political sphere, from which they often feel disconnected.

Pasieka concluded her presentation by noting that an organization using the same approach—but including migrants, thereby reinterpreting the idea of “roots”—could help overcome the xenophobic division of the world into fixed identities. To blur these boundaries, she argued, we must step outside our comfort zones—just as Simone Veil once did when she went against her own party on issues such as abortion and contraception—and engage with the Other, sharing and fulfilling the dimensions of “Rights and Needs,” and “Attention,” without falling into the kind of exclusivity promoted by the far right. This exclusivity is exemplified in the United States through the expulsion of “aliens” and a break from multilateralism. Instead, Pasieka called for a form of inclusivity—one that would meet people’s rights and needs while offering the attention they seek, without resorting to the perpetual rejection of the Other that traps humanity in a state of constant regression.

Lino Juhel.