A group of prominent academics have called for the resignation of the president of Université Lyon 2 (‘Lyon 2’) after she appeared to side with masked and hooded student activists who stormed a lecture by Middle East expert Fabrice Balanche, accusing him of “genocidal rhetoric”. The mob targeted Balanche for criticising what he described as the rise of Islamist influence on campus and for denouncing the tactics of pro-Palestinian student groups.
The open letter, published in Le Figaro on April 18 and signed by 50 academics – including Jean-Michel Blanquer, a former Minister of National Education – accuses university president Isabelle von Bueltzingsloewen of failing to uphold the principle of academic freedom after Balanche was subjected to a campaign of disruption and denunciation.
“Fabrice Balanche, a senior lecturer and recognised specialist in Syria and the geopolitical dynamics of the Middle East, has been the target of a violent smear campaign orchestrated by a group of students calling themselves anti-racist activists,” the signatories wrote. “The president of Lyon 2 University cannot remain in office after such a denial of the fundamental principles of the University Republic. We demand her resignation.”
The dispute centres on an incident that took place on April 1, when a group of masked pro-Palestinian activists stormed a lecture on Euro-Mediterranean agreements, delivered by Balanche. As they entered the hall, they shouted slogans including “Racists, Zionists, you’re the terrorists!” and accused him of being an “Islamophobe”.
“It was violent, physical, even if there were no blows,” Balanche told Le Point. “Some brandished their phones to be able to film any possible slip-up on my part. But I left the premises calmly, which disconcerted them.”
Asked why he thought he might be a particular target for such activists, Balanche said that “I don’t have a good reputation among these student activists because I don’t advocate for Palestine, Hamas, or Hezbollah.”
The protest was later claimed by the student collective “autonome Lyon 2”, which, in a social media post on April 4, called for Balanche to be dismissed from his post, accusing him of spreading “racist and genocidal rhetoric”.
It followed Balanche’s appearance on the right-leaning television channel CNews, where he criticised the ideological character of a student-led campaign to organise an on-campus iftar during Ramadan. He described the campaign at the university’s Porte des Alpes campus as “France’s first Islamist campus blockade,” and as a sign of what he called the growing influence of “Islamo-leftist” activism in French higher education. In the eyes of those activists exercising a heckler’s veto, Balanche’s remarks amounted to Islamophobia – a charge he vigorously denies.
The Ministry of Education condemned the disruption as “absolutely unacceptable”, and the university initially appeared to side with its academic. In a statement issued on April 4, Lyon-2 confirmed it had reported the incident to prosecutors and granted Balanche functional legal protection to facilitate the filing of a complaint. An investigation was subsequently launched into “obstruction of the exercise of a teaching role”.
However, comments made two weeks later by von Bueltzingsloewen to the local newspaper Tribune de Lyon appeared to walk back that support. While she described the activists’ conduct as “intolerable” and acknowledged that a “red line” had been crossed, she added that she was not “surprised that [this disruption] happened to this particular colleague,” citing his “positions on Gaza”.
von Bueltzingsloewen also criticised Balanche for what she called “appalling, conspiratorial, and damaging comments for the university”. Specifically, she took issue with his use of terms such as “Islamo-leftist group”, “Islamist excesses”, and “France’s first Islamist campus blockade” in media interviews, and expressed concern that he had suggested the university recruits staff “based on political criteria”.
When asked whether the lecturer still has a place at Lyon 2, she stopped short of giving a clear and affirmative yes. “It’s also up to him to find his place,” she said. “He’s a media figure, but he’s one teacher among 660. The controversy is cooling off, but the matter isn’t over. We’ll be discussing it at the next board meeting.”
Balanche said he was “stunned” by the suggestion that he had brought the disruption upon himself. “She’s saying that the intrusion into my class was a consequence of my statements about Gaza, which amounts to siding with my detractors,” he said. “I don’t have ‘positions’ on Gaza. I have geopolitical analyses of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I do have personal opinions on the matter, but I keep them to myself. I hope the president isn’t confusing opinions with analysis.”
He went on to defend the language that von Bueltzingsloewen had described as “conspiratorial”. “It’s the truth,” he insisted. “When students blocked the campus, it wasn’t about funding shortfalls, it was in the name of Islamist demands: to hold iftar [the evening meal breaking the fast] on university grounds. The university president has only reinforced my point. Her statements confirm Lyon-II’s lax attitude and complicity with these movements. These people don’t see the attacks on secularism or the Islamist entryism at work in these student groups.”
Although he has said he does not intend to leave Lyon 2, Balanche has not ruled out filing a defamation complaint against von Bueltzingsloewen if she does not retract her remarks.
The president’s remarks also prompted a strong political response. The centre-right president of the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, Fabrice Pannekoucke, and his predecessor, Laurent Wauquiez, issued a joint statement urging the Minister of Higher Education to initiate an inspection into what they described as “the deeply concerning excesses” at Lyon 2. “We believe it is not the university’s role to surrender in the face of those who attack the values of the Republic, especially when it is under dual assault from Islamism and the far left,” they wrote. “The president of the University is once again caving in to the extreme Left. This stance raises very serious questions about the state of freedom of expression within the university.”
The association France Universités, which represents university leaders, took a different view. In a statement, it expressed support for von Bueltzingsloewen, describing her as “the target of an unacceptable and pointless controversy fuelled by fantasies of Islamo-leftism and wokism in the university”. While it condemned the disruption caused by student activists, the association also rejected “the continued caricaturing and political instrumentalisation of universities”.
An investigation has also been opened into a series of death threats and incidents of online harassment directed at the university president in the wake of her remarks about Balanche. Lyon’s public prosecutor confirmed that the case has been assigned to the Territorial Crime Division.
As France continues to grapple with questions of secularism, Islamism, and free expression in an increasingly multicultural society, the case has exposed deepening fault lines over the meaning of academic freedom and the proper limits of institutional neutrality, not only at Lyon 2, but across an increasingly polarised university system.
