JFM’s blog

Foreword:  Two years ago, I wrote an article which was published in the « Euroscience » newsletter under the title « Storm brewing in French universities ». The present text can be viewed as an answer to the questioning of my English speaking readers who are more and more puzzled by the French situation… Many “technical” references are omitted, which can be found in different articles of the present blog. 

Trying to understand and form an opinion is a very hard task, because the situation is more complex than it might appear at first glance. I know perfectly that for many of my radical colleagues, the story could be summarized in a very simple way: an ultra-liberal government is trying to abolish the higher education public service. To follow this line, one would have to admit that the existing system has all the virtues of a public service, and that the political forces in power are genuinely liberal, although they stay very “Jacobin”. If one abandons this simplistic view, things become more difficult to analyze. Undoubtedly, it is a right-wing government who started this reform of the French University in a liberal spirit (in the European meaning of the term). But the reform has to be accepted by a state administration which is not at all liberal.  

In fact, the ruling class didn’t care about the present and the future of universities, since they had “grandes écoles” for recruiting the elite. When the right came back to power in 2002, it resumed a right-wing policy, that is to say cutting the credits for public research, which started a rebellion of researchers. Then the government engaged itself in a “reform” period. Not at all to satisfy the demands of the people in the laboratories, but to boost “the knowledge economy” according to the European strategy known as the “Lisbon strategy”. This meant more attention paid to research as motor of innovation. The universities became important as places where research was produced.  For the first time in many years, a right-wing government has shifted from its traditional policy of reducing research and university budgets. The extra credits announced may not always materialize in terms of hard cash. Some money goes to programs whose efficiency is very questionable (like tax exemptions for private research). As for the most ambitious long term programs, they may appear like “bank drafts” on an uncertain future[1]. Nevertheless, it is a new attitude at a time when other countries (USA, G-B…) are deciding severe budget cuts. But this policy move has happened in a climate of strong mistrust – even suspicion – for universities and research institutions.It is a well known fact that the political right never had the confidence of universities professors, which makes university reform tricky for a right-wing governement. But would-it be different for a left-wing governement?

All this leads to serious and multiple contradictions. On one hand the proclaimed will to give more autonomy to universities; on the other hand a “new public management” which puts autonomy under guardianship. On one hand, the “American dream” of entrepreneurial universities; on the other hand, the implementation of some kind of “neo-colbertisme”[2] which multiplies state initiatives which stifle them. On one hand, the affirmation of the prominent role of universities; on the other hand the strengthening of “grandes écoles” which marginalize universities. 

It is perfectly understandable that the mutation of universities toward autonomy should be unnatural in a political system accustomed to state planning. But the will to blend “liberalisme” and “colbertisme” creates great confusion and leads to stasis. The so called liberalism has appeared mainly as a threat for civil servants, and mobilized university professors in defense of their status. To the extent that they were seen as conservatives refusing any change; that’s why they have remained alone, which partly explains the failure of the anti reform protest.

In this context, autonomy has become a secondary stake. A majority of professors still don’t believe in autonomy. The rightists refuse autonomy because they only believe in the individual freedom of professors. The leftists stay bound to state primacy: state management would be the guarantee of equality, which is obviously wrong. One often forgets that, formerly, some influential leftists spoke for the autonomy of universities, arguing that this autonomy would give people breathing space to escape from social determinism.

But the autonomy introduced by the LRU[3] has not come completely to terms with itself. Why hasn’t the LRU been applied for the use of state funds by the universities? Nor in what concerns the devolution of real estate patrimony from the state to universities. University governance according to the LRU is not a frank success. The situation is quite different from one university to another, but the presidential system introduced by the LRU encourages certain drifts. Pretty often, the president backed by his “political majority” and taking advantage of proxy voting of the “ghost” lay members of the university council, imposes his will to the academic community on subjects which belong to their domain of competence (recruitments, promotions…). Many people feared that autonomous universities turn into a completely deregulated space. But this cannot happen without the complicity of the ministry which gives its blessing to a deregulation that it couldn’t cover openly[4].

The LRU has been overwhelmed by a number of operations “néo-colbertistes”: « pôles de recherche et d’enseignement supérieur » (PRES), « réseaux thématiques de recherche avancée » (RTRA), « Instituts Carnot » for valorisation, « Plan Campus », « Grand emprunt », French « Silicon Valley » at Saclay… These operations - that we only quote - whose financing is hypothetical in the long term, could be viewed as “state mirages”. But their underlying bureaucratic structures that interlace in a way which is far from being totally clear, reduce to nothing the breathing space of university autonomy.

The result is an “institutional backwater”. The freedom of autonomy turns out to be the freedom of crocodiles in a swamp, snatching some billions in a competition without definite rules. Actually, one doesn’t know how the 5 to 10 “campus d’excellence” supposed to get the jackpot, will be chosen. It’s all the more true that this highly competitive contest is complemented by the allocation of consolation prizes such as “laboratoires d’excellence”, “instituts hospitalo-universitaires”, “instituts de recherche technologique”… The question is whether the government intends in this way to encourage universities to group together, and to impose a governance mode beyond the LRU. The PRES are structures overlaying universities, proper to carry projects of “campus d’excellence”. Thus some PRES are created for the sole purpose of collecting campus money.

On the whole, the setting up of PRES is rather messy. The president of Toulouse’s PRES has recently resigned, publicly explaining that “the LRU and the mobilization of energies on the “plan campus” have thrown back the PRES to the second row of priorities of the universities”.

On the reform frontline, there is an “organized disorder”. Not to mention the consequences of the bad management of some sectorial reforms, like the one dealing with the formation of school professors, known under the barbarian title of “mastérisation”.

What will be the outcome of all that? If one is cynical, one can think that the French right wing has accomplished its “historical task” of scuttling the final inheritance of the Napoleon tradition, but has shown itself unable to build something coherent in its place. The left-wing wouldn’t have been capable of making a clean sweep in the same way because of its solidarity with its traditional electorate. But will the political alternation be able to present a credible program, before it is too late? For the moment it seems doubtful. Anyway the next left government cannot be satisfied with a mere restoration of the status quo ante. French University is a “dead man walking”. One will have to invent something new.

The system of “grandes écoles” seems undamaged and even strengthened by the privileged role apparently given to it by the political power. Nevertheless, it is itself shaken because it appears obsolete in the so-called “globalization”, invisible in the international rankings, and not really in line with liberal ideology. There is a contradiction between the elitism of the castes and networks of the “grandes écoles”, and the new elitism of the “campus d’excellence”.

From now until to 2012 and the next presidential election, nothing will happen. The political confusion at the top political level will increase disorder and conflicts, without any state regulation. French universities will have trouble waiting for the end of this interlude. For the future, one must hope that the university professors and researchers of our country, who count so many talented people, abandon their skepticism and fatalism to take their affairs in hand and give a positive meaning to university autonomy.