Paris (AFP)

The government hoped on Sunday to "move on" after the controversy sparked by Minister Frédérique Vidal's request for a "balance sheet" on "Islamo-leftism" in research, but calls for resignation from some politics and academics continue.

A skeptical statement from the CNRS, a forum of 600 academics demanding the resignation of Frédérique Vidal, the indignation of a part of the left: after an eventful week, the government spokesman Gabriel Attal has shown his desire to end the controversy , Sunday.

During the RTL / LCI / Le Figaro Grand Jury, he hoped that "we can move on" because "the priority is to help students get through the crisis".

Even if "situations call out - plays, conferences are prevented from taking place - should this debate which concerns extremely isolated facts monopolize the entire debate on the university? I do not believe" and "Frédérique Vidal shares it ", he assured.

Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin also considered that "those who form a junction" between "leftists" and "Islamists" were "in the minority".

However, he defended the minister, "very courageous" and who, according to him, "is right to ask for objective criteria" on this subject.

- "She must go" -

Ms. Vidal again justified her request to the CNRS in the JDD: "We need an inventory of what is being done in research in France on these subjects" linked to "Islamo-leftism".

But it has also applied itself to responding to criticism, rejecting wanting to set up a "thought police", and on the contrary ensuring that it wants "to deconstruct the idea that there would be a single thought on certain subjects and (.. .) protect the pluralism of ideas at the university ".

The leader of the Insoumis Jean-Luc Mélenchon had been one of the leaders of the left to lead the charge against the minister who "wants to decide what can be done as research at the university" and a government which "is drunk on words against Islam ".

EELV MEP Yannick Jadot followed suit on Sunday by demanding the resignation of Frédérique Vidal, as the day before 600 academics.

"She must leave. The minister who is disqualifying research and higher education in our country cannot remain in office," he said.

"That there has been individual complacency, on the right as on the left, with associations that protect a Salafist agenda, is obvious," said Yannick Jadot.

But "Islamo-leftism", "for me it doesn't correspond to anything".

"It is a political fact", opposed the general delegate of LREM Stanislas Guerini.

"I do not know if this has a scientific reality but undoubtedly, we see today that part of the left, more precisely of the extreme left, mixes its voice and converges its ideas with political Islam ".

The right added, Guillaume Peltier denouncing a "collusion between a part of the left and Islamism": "Islamo-leftism is only an emerging face of Islamism, enemy of the Republic", a- he insisted, citing the example of veiled women on the lists of the New anti-capitalist party.

For the LR president of the Senate Gérard Larcher, "we must stop being in denial" of the phenomenon.

"Does the term Islamo-leftism sum it all up? There are also subjects like decolonialism, racialism. This is totally opposed to the concept of republican universalism."

© 2021 AFP