Professor Damien Ernst Pied Mid-Lecture at ULiège

A masked group burst into a University of Liège lecture hall on Thursday afternoon and pelted Professor Damien Ernst with cream pies, an assault that the university’s rector condemned as an attack on academic freedom and that has since ignited a national political controversy in Belgium.

The incident took place around 2 p.m. on 24 September at the Institut Montefiore on the Sart-Tilman campus, as Ernst — a prominent expert on energy and artificial intelligence — was delivering his first lecture of the academic year on energy markets to roughly fifteen master’s engineering students, according to RTL Info.

What Happened

Citing information from Sudinfo, RTL reported that seven to eight young people disguised as Santa Claus — complete with hats and beards, one of them filming — stormed the auditorium shouting “facho” (fascist) and “collabo Thalès,” before throwing around ten pies at Ernst’s head and torso. Ernst said he was shocked and was unable to finish the lecture.

The pies were filled with crème fraîche, according to La DH/Belga.

Video of the scene was relayed on Instagram by the Fronde Liégeoise Anti-Militariste (FLAM) and the Front antifasciste de Liège. The action was claimed in a communiqué by a collective calling itself the “Vrai Comité (Populaire) d’Éthique de l’ULiège” (VC(P)E-ULiège), which said it wanted to denounce the ties it attributes to Ernst with the arms industry and, more broadly, collaborations between scientific research and the defense sector at ULiège.

Ernst: “A Physical Assault”

Speaking to Sudinfo, Ernst described the moment the attackers approached him. “When I saw them come in, I first thought it was a student prank,” he said. “But when they came close to me and threw their pies, they did it with real violence. It was genuinely a physical assault.”

In remarks to RTBF, the professor said he considered the episode unacceptable. “I find it really stupid to target a university professor in front of his audience,” he said, adding that the group’s stated reasoning, as seen on social media, was “unstructured” and “of no interest.”

Ernst has announced his intention to file a complaint with the police. ULiège’s press service said it would investigate the situation and did not rule out the university filing its own complaint.

Rector Condemns the Attack

ULiège Rector Anne-Sophie Nyssen reacted firmly on Thursday evening. “I firmly condemn the assault suffered today by Professor Damien Ernst, in the middle of a class, inside a university building,” she said. “This kind of act is exactly the opposite of the pluralism and mutual respect that ULiège is committed to embodying.”

The rector added: “Such an assault expresses no idea, advances no debate and lowers reflection to the level of primary instincts.”

Nyssen confirmed that an investigation is underway and that the university reserves the right to pursue judicial and, if warranted, disciplinary action. “An investigation is in progress and the University reserves the initiative to give judicial and, where appropriate, disciplinary follow-up to this intolerable act within its walls,” she said.

A Flashpoint Over Defense Research

The attack appeared to target a conference-debate organized by ULiège on 17 September titled “Artificial Intelligence in the Service of Defense – Liège at the Heart of Future Technologies,” which the collective dismissed as a lobbying operation.

At the heart of the grievance is Ernst’s partnership with the defense company Thales. The professor has acknowledged the collaboration, describing work to make its rockets more effective through artificial intelligence. The dispute reflects a broader Belgian and European debate over the relationship between universities and the arms sector — a debate that intensified after Thales Belgium announced in March 2026 that its FZ275 rockets had been qualified to equip American-built F-16s.

Commentators situated the episode within a Belgian tradition of entartage — pie-throwing as political gesture — most associated with Noël Godin, who pied figures he deemed abject, including Bill Gates in Brussels in 1998, as L’Avenir noted. Godin died on 23 August 2026 at the age of 80.

Political Fallout and a Petition

By the morning of 25 September, the incident had become a national political flashpoint. Defense Minister Theo Francken (N-VA) framed the attackers as far-left extremists, writing that Ernst was targeted “because he heads the research center on AI and Defense” at the university, according to 21news. Francken offered his support and invoked the 2002 murder of Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn as a cautionary parallel — a rhetorical framing rather than a factual assertion about this case.

MR President Georges-Louis Bouchez wrote on X that “the antifa have become the new fascists,” arguing that left-wing intolerance has become “one of the greatest dangers for our democracy.” Yvan Verougstraete of Les Engagés, a member of the European Parliament, called the violence “unacceptable,” stressing that the university is “by essence a place of debate and confrontation of ideas” where disagreements are settled “with words and arguments. Never by physical violence.”

Economist Bruno Colmant, a recent book co-author with Ernst, expressed “the greatest solidarity” with him, calling the violence “the sign of a worrying drift in our society.” Political scientist François Gemenne said lecture halls “must remain sanctuaries.”

A petition of support was launched on Change.org by the morning of 25 September. According to 21news, it argues that storming a lecture hall masked and targeting a professor “crosses a fundamental limit,” and calls on ULiège to reaffirm its commitment to academic freedom and on judicial authorities to establish the facts and responsibilities.

What’s Next

ULiège’s internal investigation is ongoing, and both Ernst and the university have signaled they may pursue legal action. No arrests had been announced as of Friday morning.

The episode has placed two competing narratives on collision course: one casting the pieing as an act of anti-militarist protest against the militarization of academia, the other describing it as political violence that silences a researcher over his work. How Belgian authorities and ULiège respond in the coming days — and whether the attack becomes a broader reckoning over defense-industry ties at public universities — will determine whether the incident remains a curiosity of Belgian political theater or becomes a defining test of academic freedom in the country.