Brian Sandberg: Historical Perspectives
American multiculturalism and intellectual influences are increasingly threatening French identity, according to French President Macron and his ministers.
The New York Times reports on the developing Franco-American Culture Wars: “Stepping up its attacks on social science theories that it says threaten France, the French government announced this week that it would launch an investigation into academic research that it says feeds ‘Islamo-leftist’ tendencies that ‘corrupt society.’ News of the investigation immediately caused a fierce backlash among university presidents and scholars, deepening fears of a crackdown on academic freedom — especially on studies of race, gender, post-colonial studies and other fields that the French government says have been imported from American universities and contribute to undermining French society.”

Questions of race and laïcité (secularism) seem to be at the heart of the French political debate over American intellectual influences and French identity.
French concepts of religious toleration and laïcité developed during…
View original post 302 more words