France’s struggle against wakeism has been made famous by a university lecturer who claimed that it had surrendered academically to Islamo-leftist students.
Sciences Po Grenoble suspended Klaus Kinzler for four months after he made defamatory remarks.
He claimed that the university encouraged students to abuse, defame and insult teachers who are not inclined to agree with their extremist views.
After Kinzler, who claimed it was an academic subject but politically charged, blocked Kinzler’s one-day conference “Racisms, Antisemitism, and Islamophobia”, the row broke out in March.
The left-wing students union retaliated by accusing him and his colleague professor of Islamophobia.
Lecturer Klaus Kinzler has become a symbol of France’s battle against wokeism after he was suspended by his university because he said it had surrendered to ‘Islamo-leftist’ students academics
In the wake of the case, President Macron’s government condemned ‘Islamo-leftism’ – known as Islamo-gauchisme in French – which points to the alleged political The Times reported that there was an alliance between Islamists and leftists.
François Jolivet, a member of Macron’s En Marche! Party has asked for university supervision by the government and for Parliament to investigate the situation in France’s institutions.
In a scathing response, Jolivet said Sciences Po, one of several institutes of political studies (IEPs) in France, had ‘fallen prey to sectarianism’.
The row has also angered right-wing politicians, with the President of the Rhone Alps region and former leader of the conservative Republicans party Laurent Wauquiez withdrawing a €100,000 public subsidy from the university.
He stated that the minority had taken the Grenoble University debate and imposed terror on it, as well as radical viewpoints which were against republican values.
Sciences Po Grenoble suspended Kinzler for four months after ruling that he claimed the university was encouraging students to abuse, insult and defame teachers.
But academics have pushed back, with 40 writing an open letter to the Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal warning ‘the freedom of expression of academics, as well as their academic freedom within the framework of their teaching and their research, freedoms of which you are the first guarantor, are in danger in our country.’
Academics have also claimed ‘Islamo-leftism’ and wokeism as concepts invented by right-wingers to constrict intellectual freedom and belittle universities.
Kinzler was expelled last week for claiming Sciences Po failed to protect him against a “reign of terror”. Sciences Po only punished one student leader responsible for the attacks on Kinzler.
The university, which he called ‘political education’, did not protect him from a campaign of students and faculty members who were obsessed with anti-capitalism, identity politics, and decolonialism.
Kinzler accepted that they were a minority group, but voiced his anger over the decision not to punish one student with a suspended exclusion.
Sciences Po Grenoble director Sabine Saurugger has defended her handling the case following the suspension being reported by the media.
“I was shocked to see the IEP’s image in the media. It is not the establishment that respects secularism, the strictest freedom of expression and academic freedom,’ Saurugger said.
Part of a larger French social debate, the issue has been part of next April’s presidential election. It will be contested by President Emmanuel Macron as well as a bunch of challengers like Marine Le Pen.
This issue is part of a larger debate in French society and will play into the next April’s presidential elections set to be contested (pictured: current President Emmanuel Macron, along with a number of other challengers, including Marine Le Pen, a far-right candidate).