According to French anthropologist Didier Fassin, there is a “reactionary wind blowing over France”, affecting the country’s political and intellectual life, and distracting the public from major economic and societal concerns. The same wind, exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic, seems to be blowing outside France as well, and it is threatening the future of higher education and academic freedom in several European countries including Italy, Hungary and Poland.
Radical right-wing populism is defined by its supporters as being for ‘the people’ and against ‘the elites’ (whether political, economic or intellectual). As a result, attacks have often targeted university academics, who are perceived as being part of the advantaged group that can rely on secure jobs, high incomes and public pensions.
Several academic fields within the humanities and social sciences have been written off as inaccessible, obscure and of no real use when it comes to addressing concrete societal problems, or providing students with the necessary knowledge to find a job. Some research fields have been directly accused of being politically biased – in other words, dominated by ideological and militant left-leaning positions, promoting minority rights and interests and supporting the ‘feminization of Western societies’.
