Heating Up Culture Wars, France to Scour Universities for Ideas That
‘Corrupt Society’
The government announced an investigation into social science research,
broadening attacks on what it sees as destabilizing American influences.
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President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have spoken out
forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence from
American campuses in recent months.
President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have spoken out
forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence from
American campuses in recent months.Credit...Francois Mori/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
ByNorimitsu Onishi
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/norimitsu-onishi>andConstant Méheut
<https://www.nytimes.com/by/constant-meheut>
* NYT, Feb. 18, 2021
PARIS — Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says
threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would
launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds
“Islamo-leftist’’ tendencies that “corrupt society.’’
News of the investigation immediately caused a fierce backlash among
university presidents and scholars, deepening fears of a crackdown on
academic freedom — especially on studies of race, gender, post-colonial
studies and other fields that the French government says have
beenimported from American
universities<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threat-american-universities.html?searchResultPosition=1>and
contribute to undermining French society.
While President Emmanuel Macron and some of his top ministers have
spoken out forcefully against what they see as a destabilizing influence
from American campuses in recent months, the announcement marked the
first time that the government has moved to take action.
It came as France’s lower house of Parliament passed adraft law
<https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/16/world/europe/france-law-islamist-extremism.html?searchResultPosition=2>against
Islamism, an ideology it views as encouraging terrorist attacks, and as
Mr. Macron tilts further to the right,anticipating nationalist
challenges ahead of elections next year.
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Frédérique Vidal, the minister of higher education,said
<https://twitter.com/LCP/status/1361702436289859595?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1361702436289859595%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/politique/islamo-gauchisme-a-l-universite-vidal-demande-une-enquete-au-cnrs_2145026.html>in
Parliament on Tuesday that thestate-runNational Center for Scientific
Research <https://www.cnrs.fr/en>would oversee an investigation into the
“totality of research underway in our country,’’ singling out
post-colonialism.
In an earlier television interview, Ms. Vidal said the investigation
wouldfocus on “Islamo-leftism’’ — a controversial term embraced by some
of Mr. Macron’s leading ministers to accuse left-leaning intellectuals
of justifying Islamism and even terrorism.
“Islamo-leftism corrupts all of society and universities are not
impervious,’’ Ms. Vidal said, adding that some scholars were advancing
“radical” and “activist” ideas. Referring also to scholars of race and
gender, Ms. Vidal accused them of “always looking at everything through
the prism of their will to divide, to fracture, to pinpoint the enemy.’’
France has since early last century defined itself as a secular state
devoted to the ideal that all of its citizens are the same under the
law, to the extent that the government keeps no statistics on ethnicity
and religion.
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A newly diversifying society, and the lasting marginalization of
immigrants mostly from its former colonies, has tested those precepts.
Calls for greater awareness of discrimination have met opposition from a
political establishment that often views them as an invitation to
American multiculturalism and as a threat to France’s identity and
social cohesion.
ImageAn activist holds a placard reading, “Freedom guides all people,”
during a gathering in Paris, Sunday, to demand that the French
government abandon a bill aimed at rooting out Islamist extremism that
the protesters say could trample on religious freedom.
An activist holds a placard reading, “Freedom guides all people,” during
a gathering in Paris, Sunday, to demand that the French government
abandon a bill aimed at rooting out Islamist extremism that the
protesters say could trample on religious freedom.Credit...Thibault
Camus/Associated Press
In unusually blunt language, the academic world rejected the
government’s accusations. The Conference of University Presidents on
Tuesdaydismissed
<http://www.cpu.fr/actualite/islamo-gauchisme-stopper-la-confusion-et-les-polemiques-steriles/>“Islamo-leftism’’
as a “pseudo notion” popularized by the far right, chiding the
government’s discourse as “talking rubbish.’’
The National Center for Scientific Research, the state organization that
the minister ordered to oversee the investigation, suggested on
Wednesday that it would comply, but itsaid
<https://www.cnrs.fr/fr/l-islamogauchisme-nest-pas-une-realite-scientifique>it
“firmly condemned” attacks on academic freedom.
The organization said it “especially condemned attempts to delegitimize
different fields of research, like post-colonial studies, intersectional
studies and research on race.’’
Opposition by academics hardened on Thursday, when the association that
would actually carry out the investigation, Athéna, put out a sharply
wordedstatement<http://www.alliance-athena.fr/communique-de-lalliance-athena-du-18-fevrier-2021/>saying
that it was not its responsibility to conduct the inquiry.
The seemingly esoteric fight over social science theories — which has
made the front page of at least three of France’s major newspapers in
recent days — points to a larger culture war in France that has been
punctuated in the past year bymass protests over racism and police
violence
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/17/world/europe/race-france-adama-traore.html>,competing
visions of feminism
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/world/europe/france-feminism-abuse-matzneff.html>,
andexplosive debates over Islam and Islamism
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/world/europe/france-terror-attack-muslims.html>.
It also follows years of attacks, large and small, by Islamist
terrorists, that have killed more than 250 French, including in recent
monthsthree people at a basilica in Nice
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/29/world/europe/nice-attack-france.html>and
ateacher who was beheaded
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/16/world/europe/france-decapitate-beheading.html>.
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While the culture war is being played out in the media and in politics,
it has its roots in France’s universities. In recent years, a new, more
diverse generation of social science scholars has embraced studies of
race, gender and post-colonialism as tools to understand anation that
has often been averse to reflect on its history
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/14/world/europe/france-racism-universalism.html>or
on subjects like race and racism.
They have clashed with an older generation of intellectuals who regard
these social science theories asAmerican imports — though many of the
thinkers behind race, gender and post-colonialism areFrench or of other
nationalities.
Mr. Macron, who had shown little interest in the issues in the past, has
won over many conservatives in recent months by coming down hard against
what he has called “certain social science theories entirely imported
from the United States.’’
In a major speech on Islamism last fall, Mr. Macrontalked
<https://www.elysee.fr/emmanuel-macron/2020/10/02/fight-against-separatism-the-republic-in-action-speech-by-emmanuel-macron-president-of-the-republic-on-the-fight-against-separatism.en>of
children or grandchildren of Arab and African immigrants “revisiting
their identity through a post-colonial or anticolonial discourse’’ —
falling into a trap set by people who use this discourse as a form of
“self-hatred’’ nurtured against France.
In recent months, Mr. Macron has moved further to the right as part of a
strategy to draw support from his likely main challenger in next year’s
presidential election, Marine Le Pen, the far-right leader. Polls show
that Mr. Macron’s edge has shrunk over Ms. Le Pen, who was his main
rival in the last election.
Chloé Morin, a public opinion expert at the Fondation Jean-Jaurès, a
Paris-based research group, said that Mr. Macron’s political base has
completely shifted to the right and that his minister’s use of the
expression Islamo-leftism “speaks to the right-wing electorate.”
“It has perhaps become one of the most effective terms for discrediting
an opponent,” Ms. Morin said.
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Last fall, Mr. Macron’s ministers adopted a favorite expression of the
far right, “ensauvagement
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/world/europe/france-crime.html?searchResultPosition=2>,’’
or “turning savage,’’ to decry supposedly out-of-control crime — even
though the government’s own statistics showed thatcrime was actually
flat or declining
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/17/world/europe/france-crime.html>.
Marwan Mohammed, a French sociologist and expert on Islamophobia, said
that politicians have often used dog-whistle words, like
“ensauvagement’’ or “Islamo-leftism,’’ to divide the electorate.
“I think the government will be offering us these kinds of topics with a
regular rhythm until next year’s presidential elections,’’ Mr. Mohammed
said, adding that these heated cultural debates distracted attention
from the government’s mishandling of the coronavirus epidemic, the
economic crisis and even the epidemic-fueled crisis at the nation’s
universities.
The expression “Islamo-leftism” was first coined in the early 2000s by
the French historian Pierre-André Taguieff to describe what he saw as a
political alliance between far-left militants and Islamist radicals
against the United States and Israel.
More recently, it has been used by conservative and far-right figures —
and now by some of Mr. Macron’s ministers — against those they accuse of
being soft on Islamism and focusing instead on Islamophobia.
Experts on Islamophobia examine how hostility toward Islam, rooted in
France’s colonial experience, continues to shape the lives of French
Muslims. Critics say their focus is a product of American-style,
victim-based identity politics.
Mr. Taguieff, a leading critic of American universities, said in a
recent email that Islamophobia, along with the “totally artificial
importation’’ in France of the “American-style Black question” sought to
create the false narrative of “systemic racism’’ in France.
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Sarah Mazouz, a sociologist at the National Center for Scientific
Research, said that the government’s attacks on these social theories
“highlight the difficulty of the French state to think of itself as a
state within a multicultural society.”
She said the use of the expression “Islamo-leftism” was aimed at
“delegitimizing” these new studies on race, gender and other subjects,
“so that the debate does not take place.”
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