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Summary
Battles over the science of global warming are raging around the world, and France is the latest hot spot. Two months ago, former French science minister Claude Allègre published L'imposture climatique (The Climate Fraud), a scathing attack on the climate research field and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Allègre, an emeritus geochemist from the Institute of Earth Physics of Paris, describes the field as a "mafia-like" system built around a "baseless myth." Exasperated climate scientists and several journalists have shot back, claiming the book itself is full of factual mistakes, distortions of data, and plain lies. And last week, more than 500 French researchers signed a letter asking Science Minister Valérie Pécresse to disavow Allègre's book by publicly expressing her confidence in French climate science.