This fall a literary scandal has erupted in France around a debut novel with a dramatic title— C’était ça ou mourir (“It Was Either That or Die”)—by the Haitian-Québécois author Thélyson Orélien. Orélien’s account of a Haitian migrant’s odyssey across South and North America made it onto the best-seller list and secured nominations for all the country’s major literary awards; it was set to be translated into over twenty languages. On September 21 the novel won the Prix du Roman Fnac, an award given by France’s largest book retailer.

That same day a Twitter account called Balance ton Claude (Out your Claude) made a startling accusation. The account’s owners had run many sections of the book through the AI-detection program Pangram, they claimed, which showed widespread use of AI throughout the text. In a country where literature is still treated as a matter of national importance, the allegation got wall-to-wall media coverage and set off an acrimonious, highly politicized controversy.…