Lawyer and academic Pierre Gentillet is the target of a virulent smear campaign by far-left students, aimed at having him removed from his teaching position at the Sorbonne on the grounds that he is close to the Rassemblement National (RN).
On October 22nd, a far-left website, of the telling name Révolution permanente, published an article targeting Pierre Gentillet, who has been teaching law at the Sorbonne for nine years. The article sparked an intense witch hunt against the academic.
Two student unions at Paris I, one of Sorbonne University’s branches, sent emails to all students via the faculty’s internal messaging system and posted statements on social media calling for his dismissal, claiming that “a far-right activist is teaching at the university.” He is accused of having been a candidate for the RN in the 2024 legislative elections and of having co-founded the right-wing union La Cocarde étudiante ten years ago. He also appears regularly on CNews as a commentator.
Gentillet found himself inundated with threatening messages and insults, to the point where he became physically afraid to walk the halls of the university. ‘This campaign has a clear goal, given the relentless nature of the attacks and comments: to make me a target in my daily life as a teacher,’ he explains.
At first, the university administration remained awkwardly and politely silent, leading Gentillet to fear that it would cave in and remove him from his teaching duties–or even deny him institutional protection.
Fortunately, the academic community rallied to his defence–including colleagues who do not share his political views, such as the X account, Actuel Moyen Age, dedicated to research in medieval history. The account’s manager, researcher Florian Besson, also a lecturer at the Sorbonne and known for his rather woke approach to history, praised the quality of Gentillet’s teaching, which he was able to assess by meeting some of his students. He believes that Gentillet has always kept his political convictions separate from the content of his law lectures. Besson has even received death threats for defending Gentillet and has been forced to disable comments and private messages on the social network.
Sébastien Fray, a lecturer at the University of Saint-Étienne, has also spoken up. For him, dismissing a professor for his opinions “is the beginning of fascism”. He wrote on X : “Academic freedom applies to everyone or no one. This colleague has not been convicted by the courts. His political activities are his own business. Students should not seek to purge the university. Neither those from the UNI [a right-wing union] nor those from the far left.”
The offensive was short-lived, and the Sorbonne eventually saw reason and renewed its confidence in Gentillet. There is still some doubt as to whether he will continue to teach at the start of the new academic year, but the fact that he has retained his post is a first victory. The university justified its decision in a statement:
Everyone has the right to freedom of conscience and freedom of opinion. No one will ever be excluded on the basis of their personal beliefs, as long as the law and the neutrality of public service are respected. In this case, no incidents involving the temporary lecturer in question have been reported in the course of his work at the institution. Under these circumstances, there is no reason to stop his teaching for the current academic year.
The intensity of the attack and the escalation by far-left activists when they realised that their strategy to get Gentillet fired was not working is indicative of their adherence to a new kind of extremism, which reuses the old revolutionary tactics of intimidation and calls for physical violence. It is to Sorbonne University’s credit that, unlike in the past when it lent an ear to far-left propaganda, it did not give in this time. A sign that the tide is turning?
