- Silence

- Averroes encounters are encounters that were created about fifteen years ago,

- we are setting up the fifteenth edition this year,

- they are a place for public debate about the Mediterranean and they were created, besides, by a colleague,

- Mr. Enbar and Alan de Libera, who wrote a book “To think in the Middle Ages”, in the1990s,

- in which a chapter was entitled “Forgotten heritage”.

- And what was this forgotten heritage? That is the Arabic sources in the European culture.

- We used to talk about Greek sources, Latin sources, but never about Arabic sources.

- Hence we found it interesting to place forwards the figure of Averroes as an Arab figure of European rationality.

- So it is true that it dislocated a little surprised people, rightly to say that there is no rupture between both Mediterranean banks.

- The link is quite direct with the Ramses II network.

- The Ramses II network is a top level network in the European research field,

- that gathers about thirty research centers and institutes, with the authority to constitute the domain of Mediterranean studies

- and, really, to overcome the elements of separation, of fracture that some people want to establish today between Europe and Islam.

- And so Thierry Fabre, when you talk about Arabic source, you talk about Arabic expression, Islam is beyond Arabic centrism.