Jean-Michel Blanquer, Minister of Education.

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Lionel Urman / Sipa USA / SIPA

"Islamo-leftism" is an "unmistakable social fact" that must "be looked in the face", declared this Saturday the Minister of National Education Jean-Michel Blanquer, while his colleague Frédérique Vidal was very criticized for having asked the CNRS for an investigation on the subject within the university.

“It would be absurd not to want to study a social fact.

If it's an illusion, you have to study the illusion and see if it is.

For my part, I see it as an unmistakable social fact ", the minister said on BFMTV, estimating that" some still try to minimize this political project ".

"It is a phenomenon that must be looked in the face", underlined the Minister of Education, citing the examples of "single-sex" workshops organized by the Sud Education 93 union in 2017 and the interruption of a representation of the ancient poet Aeschylus, interrupted "by activists" in 2019 at the Sorbonne.

Mélenchon referred

These comments come at a time when the CNRS recalled this week that the term "Islamo-leftism" does not correspond "to any scientific reality", while the Minister of Higher Education and Research Frédérique Vidal had requested "a report of all research ”which takes place in France, in order to distinguish between what is academic research and what is activism.

"It is a word which does not necessarily have a scientific content" but "describes a political reality", judged Jean-Michel Blanquer, adding that it was "a very global term".

"I'm happy after political scientists analyze this or find other words to describe the phenomenon," he said.

According to Jean-Michel Blanquer, Islamist "extremists" "sometimes find accomplices in certain extreme left circles".

“When you have Jean-Luc Mélenchon taking part in a demonstration of the CCIF [Collective against Islamophobia in France] (in November 2019 in Paris), where there were radical Islamists, Mr. Mélenchon falls into Islamo-leftism without no doubt, ”he said.

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  • Frederique Vidal

  • Jean-Michel Blanquer

  • Education

  • University

  • Radical Islamism

  • Society