Threats to academic freedom online and offline in France

This chapter explores the Islamo-gauchisme (Islamo-Leftism) controversy in France focusing on its effects on academic freedom and the targeting of intellectuals. While the terminology had been in use in France since the start of the 2000s and had made occasional forays into public debate, it was brought to national prominence in 2020–2021 when several government ministers denounced the supposedly nefarious effects this “ideology” was having in the country’s universities. The chapter will consider why and how this problem has been constructed by French political elites despite the meaning of Islamo-gauchisme remaining nebulous and ill-defined. It will focus on several episodes that had direct effects on the French university system including the nomination and subsequent campaign against Nonna Mayer for the post of President of the Paris Institute of Political Studies, the controversy at Sciences Po Grenoble and the fightback of academics. The chapter will reflect on how the controversy subsequently developed to include attacks on “woke culture” and became part of wider, more global culture wars that threaten academic freedom.