Top French politicians, journalists, and intellectuals are warning that “woke” social science theories “entirely imported from the United States” regarding race, gender, and post-colonialism are a serious threat to France.
“Emboldened by these comments, prominent intellectuals have banded together against what they regard as contamination by the out-of-control woke leftism of American campuses and its attendant cancel culture,” The New York Times reported this week. “With its echoes of the American culture wars, the battle began inside French universities but is being played out increasingly in the media. Politicians have been weighing in more and more, especially following a turbulent year during which a series of events called into question tenets of French society.”
The Times’ report notes that some of Macron’s remarks were made in a speech that he gave late last year. The Times surmised Macron’s speech as warning that American “woke leftism” was an “existential” threat to France that “fuels secessionism,” “abets Islamism,” “gnaws at national unity,” and “attacks France’s intellectual and cultural heritage.”
Macron made the remarks in a speech about fighting against separatism where he warned that many topics that France used to excel in teaching from an academic standpoint “have been undermined and we have abandoned them.”
