A former director of UNI, Olivier Vial is director of CERU, which presents itself as an independent think tank.
The terrible terrorist attack that struck Israel acts as a powerful revelation of the hold that Islamo-leftism and anti-Semitism exert on part of the French left, particularly within our universities. Blinded by their ideology, their hatred and their petty political calculations, Jean-Luc Mélenchon and the parliamentarians of La France Insoumise dared to send back to back victims and executioners; and this, even as Hamas terrorists cowardly attacked Israeli civilians, bombing and machine-gunning young people who were dancing at a rave party, forcing others out of their homes to shoot them on their doorsteps, kidnapping young girls and the elderly... The latest toll is more than 700 dead, thousands wounded and 160 hostages (as of the morning of 9 October). Terrorist horror on a grand scale!
Worse than the abject relativism of these NUPES deputies, a large part of the academic left has gone so far as to take the side of the perpetrators of these massacres. On X (formerly Twitter), the general secretary of the Student Trade Union Federation – FSE called for "solidarity with the armed struggle of the Palestinian people". This movement, far from being marginal, is one of the components of the second national student organization, the Student Union. It has representatives in almost all universities and ministerial bodies.
As for the militants of the Raised Fist, after having mobilized on campuses for the release of the terrorist Georges Ibrahim Abdallah and against the ban on abayas, they are now joining forces with Hamas. "Down with French imperialism, Israel's loyal ally and supporter of the Palestinian resistance!" wrote one of the leaders of the Raised Fist. These extremely radical positions ended up influencing some of the students. At the University of Paris 8-Saint Denis, for example, this organization became the majority and won 47% of the vote in the last student elections. It is now established in 14 universities and many high schools. Affiliated with the Trotskyist movement, Permanent Revolution, it benefits from the support of certain academics and researchers, such as Frédéric Lordon (economist and director of research at the CNRS), who has become, since 2016 and the Nuit Debout movement, one of the most listened to figures by activists.
The relationship between the radical left and Islamism goes back a long way. As early as 1920, in Baku, the Communist International brought together representatives of the peoples of the East to establish a common strategy.
Olivier Vial
The antifa movements are not to be outdone. From La Jeune Garde to the Action Antifasciste Paris-Banlieue collective, all have enthusiastically espoused the cause of Israel's aggressors in the name of the struggle against the "colonizers." Some, such as the Lyon-based antifa group, are even calling for rallies in support of Palestinian "fighters."
Faced with this Islamo-leftist surge, the administration of many universities has long preferred to look the other way, stuck between "no vaguism" and, for some, a form of complacency. Two days before the attack on Israel, Solidaires étudiants organized, for example, a conference at the University of Lyon 2 on the theme "Colonization and Israeli apartheid, what future for the Palestinians?" with Maryam Abu Daqqa, one of the representatives of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a terrorist organization suspected of involvement in the Copernicus Street attack, as a star guest. Several organizations, including UNI, have called for the cancellation of the conference. The university simply asked that this person not be in the gallery or in the program. That didn't stop her from speaking from the floor. This episode is emblematic of the petty cowardice and "accommodations" that university authorities accept in order to deal with an ideological current that is increasingly influential within them.
The Trotskyists of the Fourth International are at work. The relationship between the radical left and Islamism goes back a long way. As early as 1920, in Baku, the Communist International brought together representatives of the peoples of the East to establish a common strategy. Sultan Galiev, a member of the central communist hierarchy, had achieved a real success by declaring that "communist society in the land of Islam would be attained through national revolution and jihad". In 1979, the Trotskyists of the OIC also gave their support to the mullahs' regime in Iran; A gateway was created. It became institutionalized in 2004 with the creation of the Respect Party in England, a movement composed on the one hand of the Trotskyists of the Social Workers Party (SWP) and on the other of those close to the MAB, the Muslim Association of Britain, an association close to the Muslim Brotherhood.
It is especially in universities that this alliance will develop. The anti-globalization left, close to the NPA, which at that time held the upper hand, moved closer to Tariq Ramadan and his followers in the universities.
Olivier Vial
This is the starting point of a new strategy that will also develop in France, thanks in particular to the members of the TSI (international socialist tendency). The latter then formed a group called "Socialisme par en bas", one of the main figures of which was Daniele Obono, the future LFI deputy, who tried to draw inspiration from the English model. In 2010, the members of the NPA joined forces with Houria Bouteldja and supported the creation of the Party of the Indigenous People of the Republic – the PIR.
However, it is above all in universities that this alliance will develop. The anti-globalization left, close to the NPA, which at that time held the upper hand, moved closer to Tariq Ramadan and his followers in the universities. The latter was even the star guest at the European Social Forum in London (2004). This alliance between Islamists and "leftists" has not only developed in the militant sphere, it has also given rise to concepts. In 2003, the emergence of the notion of Islamophobia was facilitated by the collaboration between academics, such as Vincent Geisser of the CNRS, and activist groups who multiplied conferences to impose this term in the public debate and make it a weapon of mass deterrence vis-à-vis their opponents.
Decolonial studies then took over to forge concepts for the activists' arsenal. Thus, "systemic racism" and "white privilege" were used by activists to denounce the state, the police and feed the resentment of minorities against our societies in the hope of inciting them to rise up. Old Trotskyist hope. In many of the statements in support of the attacks carried out by Hamas, we find the themes of this school of thought: the fight against neo-colonialism, the denunciation of Western postcolonialism...
If we don't want the Middle East conflict to be further exported to our campuses, immediate steps must be taken to stop the rise of Islamo-leftism in universities.
Olivier Vial
In the name of intersectionality, all the battles now seem to be able to be mobilized to defend Israel's aggression. Fatima Ouassak, founder of the Mothers' Front and close to the environmental movement Alternatiba, tweeted: "Ecology can only be Palestinian. If it is really aimed at combating the dispossession of land and water [...] Support for uprisings on Palestinian land." She adds in another message: "During the anti-colonial war in Algeria, Simone de Beauvoir or Sartre took a stand (without trembling) for the Algerian resistance, against France. In the war between colonists and colonized, we must support (without trembling) the camp of the colonized." The virulence of these remarks is calculated. The activist has been trying for several years to implant radical ecology in neighborhoods and among young people. To this end, it can count on the support of many institutions. Last March, she was the guest of the University of Strasbourg and the city of Grenoble as part of the Decolonial Month. In September, Sciences Po Rennes offered her a new platform, while the Paris City Hall plans to put her in the spotlight next December at a meeting on ecofeminism.
At the end of September, an IFOP poll conducted for the Union of Jewish Students of France established that 9 out of 10 students had been victims of anti-Semitic acts during their studies. 7% say they have even been physically assaulted. If we do not want this type of act to become commonplace and for the Middle East conflict to be further exported to our campuses, measures must be taken immediately to stop the rise of Islamo-leftism in universities (abolition of financial aid and the provision of premises for associations of this movement, end of subsidies to conferences that advocate these theories...).
Let us hope that the current Minister of Higher Education will really take up the subject this time. Before her, Frédérique Vidal had pretended in February 2021 to launch an investigation on the subject then claiming that everything was settled and that "Islamo-leftism and censorship were problems of the past and freedom of opinion had been restored at the university" (interview on France Info of October 15, 2021). However, Le Monde recently revealed that this investigation had, in fact, never been conducted. It's easier to see nothing, when you're doing everything you can to avoid looking! But today, burying one's head in the sand is no longer possible. The penetration of Islamo-leftism into universities and the intersectional left has just jumped out at us.