She denounces “one of the fights led by LFI”. The Minister of National Education Élisabeth Borne reframed on Sunday July 13, her colleague in charge of higher education Philippe Baptiste for having considered that “Islamo-leftism” is a concept that “does not exist”.
“This current exists in society, therefore necessarily at university,” said Élisabeth Borne on Radio J.
Monday on LCP, Philippe Baptiste had estimated that “this term does not exist as an university term, it is not even well defined, so this notion does not exist”. There are certainly “abuses”, but “to say that there is an Islamo-leftist movement which would be there to want to take power within this or that university, no, I do not believe that it is reality,” he added.
Questioned on Sunday on her definition of the term, Élisabeth Borne estimated that “it is people of the far left who consider that Muslims are an electoral force, which courts them by encouraging communitarianism and by trivializing radical Islamism”.
“There are both personalities and political parties, I am thinking in particular of LFI, who carry an extreme left ideology which instrumentalizes Islam, which trivializes radical Islamism, and which encourages communitarianism,” said the Minister of Education.
“Entry game”
“It is one of the fights that LFI is leading, in particular to bring these ideologies into the university and they do not hide them” since ‘”They go around for some of them of all the universities of France, so I think that their fight is clear enough,” she added.
Philippe Baptiste’s statements had aroused strong right reactions. “To deny the presence of Islamo-leftism in universities is to play the game of entrism at a time when we must be intractable in the face of this scourge,” said LR secretary general Othman Nasrou.
“To say that Islamo-leftism does not exist is a bit like saying that the land is not round,” said former education minister Jean-Michel Blanquer.
The position of Philippe Baptiste contrasts with that of his predecessors: in 2021 the Minister of Higher Education Frédérique Vidal had wanted to request an investigation into “Islamo-leftism” at university, aroused controversy.
Original article published on bfmtv.com