In February 2021, French Higher Education, Research and Innovation Minister Frederique Vidal denounced what she calls Islamo-leftism and its gangrene effect on France [Sebastien Bozon/AFP]
We write to express our solidarity with the scholars, activists, and other knowledge producers who are targeted by the February 2021 statements by Frédérique Vidal, France’s minister of higher education, research, and innovation. In them, she denounced “Islamo-gauchisme” (Islamo-leftism) and its “gangrene” effect on France, and called for an inquiry into France’s national research organisation, the CNRS, and the university. The specific kinds of knowledge in question analyse and critique colonialism and racism, and support decolonial, antiracist, and anti-Islamophobia projects within the academy and on the streets. Vidal’s statements show the discomfort these challenges are causing the state, and hence the desire to repress them rather than engage them.