French academics fear a “grim” future for the country’s higher education and research under the country’s new government, with insufficient funding expected as ministers grapple with a deficit now exceeding 6 per cent of gross domestic product.
President Emmanuel Macron announced his new Cabinet in September, reflecting a significant shift to the right after June’s snap election produced a hung parliament. Both the prime minister and the minister of higher education and research, Michel Barnier and Patrick Hetzel, now belong to the right-wing Les Républicains, succeeding Gabriel Attal of the centrist Renaissance party and independent Sylvie Retailleau.
Earlier this month, the government presented a 2025 budget that boosts funding for the Higher Education and Research Ministry by about €90 million (£75 million), an amount sector leaders say will fail to compensate for inflation. The budget also calls into question the promises of a 2020 law that pledged to inject a further €25 billion into research and development by 2030, academics have said.
“Everybody knows that France is not in very good shape in terms of budget,” said Martin Andler, an emeritus professor at the University of Versailles Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines and president of the Initiative for Science in Europe. “It seems to be impossible to devote a bigger share to higher education and research.
“From that perspective, the overall situation is grim,” Professor Andler said. Amid cross-continental calls to double the budget for the next European Union research programme, meanwhile, he said he was “not terribly positive” about France’s potential contribution.
Boris Gralak, secretary general of the National Trade Union of Scientific Researchers, called the proposed budget “catastrophic”, telling Times Higher Education: “The position of higher education and research will decline in our country.”
Professor Retailleau, a former president of Paris-Sud University, was “rather liked” within academia, Professor Andler said, but was “basically unable to really improve the budgetary situation for universities and research”. Dr Gralak characterised the ministry under Professor Retailleau as open to dialogue with research stakeholders, despite continued underfunding. With only two years before the next presidential election, he said, “there was not enough time for the ministry to do something new”.
Bruno Andreotti, a physics professor at Université Paris Cité, said policy to date under Mr Macron had been “unremarkable”, continuing a “trend of the past 20 years that has led to France’s scientific and technical decline”. Professor Andreotti cited “stagnant budgets amidst inflation, bureaucratisation and precaritisation” as ongoing issues.
While sector leaders have welcomed the continued existence of a dedicated Ministry for Higher Education and Research, some have raised concerns about the appointment of Mr Hetzel, who advocated the use of hydroxychloroquine during the Covid-19 pandemic and has proposed an inquiry into “Islamo-leftist excesses” in universities.
Mr Hetzel played a central role in a 2007 law that aimed to grant greater financial autonomy to universities and prompted fears among students and academics of heightened inequality among institutions and a rise in elitism.
“It is not a good signal for us to have a minister of research who held such positions,” Dr Gralak said. Ahead of the one-year anniversary of the 7 October Hamas attack on Israel and the subsequent war in Gaza, Mr Hetzel had instructed universities to “maintain order” and “ensure respect for the principle of neutrality” amid potential student protests. “For us, it is a signal that he would like to restrict the liberty of expression at universities,” said Dr Gralak.
Mr Barnier, meanwhile, has dangled plans to restrict migration to France, which Professor Andreotti said “will likely [present] difficulties for laboratories and universities related to the reception of foreigners”.
