Something like a cross between a medieval disputation, the Moscow Trials, and an al Qaeda beheading scene: Into the heart of the "Seine-y triangle"

Alain Finkielkraut, 56-year-old professor, philosopher, author, and subtle commentator on current events … has been dragged into something like a cross between a medieval disputation, the Moscow Trials, and an al Qaeda beheading scene, simply because he deviated from the accepted interpretation of the violence then raging in France…

writes Nidra Poller (merci à Jonathan Baum et Bertrand Latour)

Once the sharks had drawn blood a motley crew of French journalists, scholars, and all-purpose intellectuals rushed to devour the man who dared to speak his mind, inadvertently exposing their own mental and ethical poverty in the process.

Here in France, where no accusation against America or Israel is too scurrilous for official dissemination and mass consumption, Finkielkraut was beaten almost senseless for developing, with utmost precaution, a thoughtful analysis of the riots. …

Finkielkraut's forthright search for the truth led him into the heart of the "Seine-y triangle," where Le Monde, Le Nouvel Observateur, Télérama, and Libération dictate the lockstep thinking that stifles French minds.

…Whatever distress this may cause today must be overshadowed by a far greater and ultimately inconsolable distress at the collapse of intelligent discourse in this France that he loves so deeply.