Targeted by random control when he arrived, a French researcher was refused the right to enter American soil. One of the reasons put forward is at least disturbing.
The facts would go back to March 9. While going to a conference on space for the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) near Houston, Texas, a French researcher was denied his entry into the United States before being expelled from the American territory. “This measure would have been taken by the American authorities because the telephone of this researcher”, targeted by a visibly random control, “contained exchanges with colleagues and friendly relations in which he expressed a personal opinion on the policy carried out by the Trump administration in matters of research,” revealed the French Minister of Higher Education and Research to AFP, whose AFP, whose AFP, Le Figaro echoes.
The French researcher was able to count on the full and whole support of Minister Philippe Baptiste, who assured that “freedom of opinion, free research and academic freedoms are values that we will continue to claim proudly”. And to insist: “I will defend the possibility for all French researchers to be faithful there, while respecting the law.” But if he also has “Deplor[é] This situation “, the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs has recalled that the United States is” sovereign “with regard to the management of entries and stays on its territory of foreign persons.
A CNRS researcher repressed by the United States for criticizing Trump’s policy in private conversations: “We are concerned. This affects academic freedom and freedom of expression” for @Phbaptiste pic.twitter.com/tqwtva41qb
– Sud Radio (@Sudradio) March 21, 2025
Washington denies
As part of this controlled in early March, the personal telephone and the professional computer of the French researcher would have been searched. The American authorities would then have claimed to have discovered messages there “which reflect a hatred towards Trump and can be qualified as terrorism”. Messages qualified as “hateful and conspiracy”, affirms another source with the Figaro. Be that as it may, the researcher would have been confiscated his equipment and returned to the old continent the next day. An FBI investigation would have been opened, but “the charges [auraient] been abandoned, “it is still said to Figaro.
Friday evening, a spokesperson for the United States Ministry of Internal Security delivered a significantly different version in a press release. “Any assertion that his repression was based on political convictions is completely false,” he said, advancing for his part that the French researcher “was in possession of confidential information contained on an electronic apparatus and from the Los Alamos National Laboratory [connu pour conduire des recherches sur les armes nucléaires notamment ndlr.]in violation of a confidentiality agreement “and that he would have himself” admitted having taken them without authorization “and would have” tried to hide it “.