A renowned French university professor finds himself caught up in turmoil for having expressed his opposition to the holding of an Islamic breaking of the fast on the premises of the Lumière University Lyon 2 (Lyon-2). Prevented from teaching and the victim of harassment, he has filed a complaint. He has made clear his intention to engage in a trial of strength against these attempts at intimidation, which once again demonstrate the hold of Islamism in French higher education.
On April 1st, Fabrice Balanche, director of research in political geography at the university, considered one of France’s leading experts on Syria, was the victim of an intrusion during one of his lectures. About twenty individuals, some of them wearing hoods, entered the room, attacked him, brandishing placards, and forced him to leave the premises. The professor was insulted, called a ‘Zionist’ and a racist—to the applause of a few students who had taken the troublemakers’ side.
The reason for this was his support a few days earlier for the university management, which had just refused to allow a Ramadan fast-breaking banquet to be held on university premises, leading to a blockade of the campus on March 28th by students protesting the university’s decision. The next day, the academic appeared on the CNews set to explain his support for the administration’s refusal to organise an ‘iftar,’ and denounced what he considered to be the first Islamist blockade in France. “It wasn’t a blockade for the retirees or for the students’ resources, but to factually make an Islamist demand,” Balanche explained in an interview with the newspaper Le Point. Activists from outside the university allied with some students criticised Professor Balanche for speaking out in public and decided to silence him.
But Balanche is not a man to be intimidated or to back down. A week after his course was interrupted, the Lumière University Lyon 2, no doubt overcome with remorse, offered him the option of relocating and leaving the Bron campus where he usually teaches, for another faculty building—supposedly easier to secure. But the professor categorically refused: it was out of the question, he explained, to “abandon the field” to troublemakers.
The professor filed a complaint, and an investigation was opened by the Lyon public prosecutor’s office. He now benefits from ‘functional protection,’ being the target of threats, like other academics or teachers before him who have openly chosen to fight against the grip of Islamism in the education system.
“We must not turn the page, nor bury this affair too quickly,” Balanche told the newspaper L’Opinion.
This is not the first time that he has been targeted by these ‘Islamo-leftists’ who are well established within the French university—despite the denial of the administrative hierarchy. “I don’t have a good reputation with these student activists because I don’t defend Palestine, Hamas or Hezbollah. But they can’t stand that we can have an objective view of the conflicts in the Middle East, he said” At the beginning of the month, Balanche took part in a conference on defence issues, where he discussed Islamist attacks, ten years after the Bataclan. He says: “I spoke on the subject of suicide attacks in Islam—among Shiites, Sunnis … I mentioned the case of women who commit suicide attacks. Some students didn’t like it, and reported me to the university, accusing me of being Islamophobic and sexist.” The war continues on Wikipedia, where his page is the subject of fierce controversy, aimed at making him appear to support Bashar al-Assad.
It took a long time for the case to appear in the mainstream press. Balanche did, however, end up obtaining the support of his two supervising ministers, Élisabeth Borne (National Education) and Philippe Baptiste (Higher Education). An opinion piece was also published in the newspaper Le Point asking Minister Élisabeth Borne to join the complaint and to bring a civil action to send the signal that the government takes this intimidation and these obstacles to academic freedom at the university very seriously. During the latest battle within the government on the issue of the Islamic veil in sport, the minister sided with the more timid against ministers Retailleau (Interior) and Darmanin (Justice).
Balanche has also received the support of Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, a researcher at the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), who received death threats for her work on the Muslim Brotherhood.
