Smear campaigns targeting Patrick Boucheron

The smear campaigns targeting historian Patrick Boucheron, a professor at the Collège de France, did not begin with his interview on France Culture. As early as November 2025, during the symposium “Europe and Palestine” at the Collège de France, he and historian Henry Laurens were the targets of several smear campaigns and acts of harassment. Graffiti bearing their names was scrawled on the ground in front of the institution, accompanied by the slogans: “Laurens, Boucheron, Free the Hostages for Peace in Gaza” and “Hamas: Murderers, Rapists.” The complaint filed by the institution specifies, however, that no acts of violence or harassment were committed against the two professors and researchers.

On June 23, 2026, as a guest on France Culture with Guillaume Erner in a program dedicated to Marc Bloch’s induction into the Panthéon, Patrick Boucheron was asked about a possible link between contemporary antisemitism and the protests in support of Palestine. Erner also mentioned the “resurgence of antisemitism that sometimes takes on different forms.” Believing that this question strayed from the program’s topic, he refused to answer it and declared, “We’ll let you talk to yourself.” This refusal earned him a wave of attacks in the media and on social media.