Donald Trump’s victory in the American presidential elections, with Elon Musk at his side, prompted media outlets and commentators in France to leave the social network X in protest. This was made easy by the new HelloQuitteX application, designed to facilitate transitioning to other networks. But the origins of the app have sparked controversy. The overtly political project was created with the support of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), France’s public research agency—and therefore with the help of public funds.
The rumours of people leaving X had been building for several weeks.Many left-wing media and personalities felt it was no longer possible to “support” the now-Elon-Musk-owned platform, which has been accused of all kinds of evils: conspiracy theories, ‘collusion’ with the far right, dissemination of fake news, and so on. January 20th, 2025—the day Donald Trump was officially inaugurated as the 47th President of the United States—provided a symbolic opportunity for these protesters to take action.
The movement began with the press. Major titles in the regional daily press, such as Ouest-France and La Voix du Nord, announced that they were leaving X, and were subsequently joined by titles in the national press,—some of them as big as Le Monde, the organ of reference for the French ruling class. Others, such as Le Figaro, announced their intention to stay with Musk’s social network.
The wave of departures includes individuals who have widely publicised their decision, making it an act of political activism: journalists, news commentators, but also cities, ministries, associations, and official institutions—such as Paris City Hall, the Human Rights League, and the Pasteur Institute—and, finally, academics and researchers. The dissatisfied users denounce the “lack of moderation and the way the algorithms are configured,” which, they claim, “encourage the proliferation of hateful content” on the network now in the hands of the American billionaire.
To support the ‘transition’ to other platforms, mainly BlueSky and Mastodon, deemed “more compatible with privacy and freedom of expression,” a group of French developers created HelloQuitteX, an application that helps X users migrate to other social networks without losing their contacts.
The interface is designed to be fun. The name of the application is a pun on Hello Kitty, a Japanese children’s cartoon character. The project involves around 30 people, almost all of them volunteers, including a small team of developers coordinated by the CNRS, headed by mathematician David Chavalarias.
More than 17,000 people are said to have already joined the movement. This is not the first time that a wave of departures from X has been staged. What’s different this time is the involvement of a state agency, the CNRS. This is the national centre that coordinates the research programmes of French universities, and as such, the CNRS essentially operates on public funds. The launch of the HelloQuitteX app is a form of political activism that should not fall within the remit of the CNRS.
The CNRS makes no secret of its involvement: its logo appears on the app’s home page. Some people even boast about it, like Raphaël Glucksmann, former head of the socialist list in the European elections, who told Sud Radio that he was “in the process of organising an organised departure of X with CNRS researchers.”
Researchers have been quick to react to this questionable commitment by the CNRS. One of them is Florence Bergeaud-Blackler, an academic specialising in political Islam, who is well-known in conservative circles for having published articles and books denouncing the hold of the Muslim Brotherhood in France and is, therefore, a target of Islamists. A few months ago, while living under death threats, she was dropped by the CNRS, which refused to give her the protection her situation would have required because she was deemed politically incorrect. She criticises the involvement of the agency as a censorship initiative “that damages the credibility and reputation of CNRS researchers in France and around the world.” For polemicist Didier Maïsto, the initiative is nothing less than an egregious “misappropriation of public funds.”
The controversy has escalated to the point where even the mainstream press has had to take up the issue. The promoter of the project, David Chavalarias, has defended himself by describing the cabal as “the ravings of the fachosphère.” He explained:
It’s obvious that it’s not the CNRS management that commits itself and directly validates the launch of any research project. It is the researchers who are responsible within the limits of their resources, resources in which the CNRS only participates to a limited extent.
Chavalarias intends to shield the HelloQuitteX initiative behind the cloak of ‘academic freedom.’
The fact remains, however, that the researcher is admitting that the national research agency is funding this overtly political project, whether consciously or not. If it had been a question of supporting Musk, and not the other way around, it is unlikely that ‘academic freedom’ would have been considered a valid reason for committing CNRS funds and staff.
