France’s academic community is in uproar after higher education minister Frédérique Vidal declared her intention to order the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) to mount an “investigation into Islamo-leftism” in the country’s universities.

The controversy began on Sunday, when the minister gave a remarkable interview to CNews — the news station beloved of the far right. Questioned on a recent front-page article in conservative daily Le Figaro, headlined “How Islamo-Leftism Corrupted the Universities,” Vidal began her comments by agreeing with its “assessment”:

What we’re seeing in the universities is that people can take advantage of their titles and the aura surrounding them . . . they are minoritarian and they do this, certainly, to promote radical or militant Islamo-leftist ideas, always seeing things through the prism of their determination to divide, to cause tension, to identify enemies.