This is one of the most interesting articles in the New York Times I've ever read. It also confirms what I've been saying about France for years now. Namely that the era of subversive and left-wing French public intellectuals - who influenced the entire Western world since 1968 - is over. The vast majority of influential French public intellectuals are now centrists/conservatives, reactionaries, and outright nativists. Even the few leftist ones are viciously anti-woke. One of the reasons why the radical right is growing exponentially in France is because their ideas have been permeating French society for decades. They literally invented our metapolitical game. The Alt-Right wouldn't even exist without them. If Marine Le Pen wins in 2022 it will be partly because of this.

Anyway, here are some quotes from the article:

The threat? “Certain social science theories entirely imported from the United States,’’ said President Emmanuel Macron.

French politicians, high-profile intellectuals and journalists are warning that progressive American ideas — specifically on race, gender, post-colonialism — are undermining their society. “There’s a battle to wage against an intellectual matrix from American universities,’’ warned Mr. Macron’s education minister.

I'm convinced they only feel threatened by this because France has a much larger and better organized radical right than the US. Not to mention the fact that the country isn't as diverse as the US either. They know that their native population wouldn't stand for this bullshit. They can already feel the pressure from Le Pen.

The publication this month of a book critical of racial studies by two veteran social scientists, Stéphane Beaud and Gérard Noiriel, fueled criticism from younger scholars — and has received extensive news coverage. Mr. Noiriel has said that race had become a “bulldozer’’ crushing other subjects, adding, in an email, that its academic research in France was questionable because race is not recognized by the government and merely “subjective data.’’

Again, these social scientists know that these kinds of ideas will only benefit the radical right. They don't want to open Pandora's box because the identitarian movement is already strong in France. Unfortunately for them, opening Pandora's box is inevitable.

France has long laid claim to a national identity, based on a common culture, fundamental rights and core values like equality and liberty, rejecting diversity and multiculturalism. The French often see the United States as a fractious society at war with itself.

They're of course right about the US, but the French establishment is also delusional about its own polity.

Abdellali Hajjat, an expert on Islamophobia, said that it became increasingly difficult to focus on his subject after 2015, when devastating terror attacks hit Paris. Government funding for research dried up. Researchers on the subject were accused of being apologists for Islamists and even terrorists.

Oh no, their precious government funding dried up. How will France cope? Seriously though, the fact that Macron's government did this is kind of remarkable. Even though he's a neoliberal cretin he's not as bad as his American counterparts.

Mr. Macron’s education minister, Jean-Michel Blanquer, accused universities, under American influence, of being complicit with terrorists by providing the intellectual justification behind their acts.

A group of 100 prominent scholars wrote an open letter supporting the minister and decrying theories “transferred from North American campuses” in Le Monde.

I honestly can't see Biden's administration saying the same thing about BLM or Antifa. Neoliberals in the US have been pushed to the left on social and cultural issues. In France they've been pushed to the right. The same thing is true about the scholars. Just imagine 100 prominent American scholars doing the same thing.

Along with Islamophobia, it was through the “totally artificial importation’’ in France of the “American-style Black question” that some were trying to draw a false picture of a France guilty of “systemic racism’’ and “white privilege,’’ said Pierre-André Taguieff, a historian and a leading critic of the American influence.

Mr. Taguieff said in an email that researchers of race, Islamophobia and post-colonialism were motivated by a “hatred of the West, as a white civilization.’’

“The common agenda of these enemies of European civilization can be summed up in three words: decolonize, demasculate, de-Europeanize,’’ Mr. Taguieff said. “Straight white male — that’s the culprit to condemn and the enemy to eliminate.”

Wow, just wow. If a leading American academic said something like that he would be called a Nazi and forced to resign. Yet here we have a reputable French historian who sounds exactly like one of /Our Guys/. It's mind-blowing really.

Behind the attacks on American universities — led by aging white male intellectuals — lie the tensions in a society where power appears to be up for grabs, said Éric Fassin, a sociologist who was one of the first scholars to focus on race and racism in France, about 15 years ago.

Yes, it is indeed up for grabs, but it won't be people like him who will grab it. It will be the people he hates the most.

By the way, look at the top comments of the article. Even the readers of the NYT are sick and tired of this shit. Lmao!

Article:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/09/world/europe/france-threat-american-universities.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage