“The prevailing sense of the group” resembled the critiques of American progressivism advanced by American anti-woke thinkers like Glenn Loury, John McWhorter, and Tabia Lee, Williams wrote. The French visions of racial and ethnic justice bore little resemblance to Ibram Kendi-style “antiracism.”

“By pitting groups against one another in a zero-sum power struggle—and sorting them on a scale of virtue based on privilege and oppression—wokeness can’t help but elevate race and ethnicity to an extent that expands prejudice rather than reducing it,” the esteemed French professors believed, according to [Thomas Chatterton] Williams.

Even more, “the French have long prided themselves on having a system of government that doesn’t recognize racial or ethnic designations,” Williams wrote. “The idea is to uphold a universal vision of what it means to be French, independent of race, ethnicity, and religion.”

[That used to be the ideal in America, too — the rule of law rather than a rule of identity, even if we failed to live up to it for long periods in our history. — Ed]