Towards ever more liberalism in universities. If re-elected, Emmanuel Macron will tackle the sacrosanct quasi-free higher education in France. This is what he announced during his closing speech at the 50th anniversary of the congress of the Conference of University Presidents on Thursday evening.
“We will not be able to stay in a system where higher education is priceless for almost all students”, launched the head of state. Before describing, in a logical sequence which escapes us, a world of the university “where a third of the students are on scholarships and where, however, we have so much student insecurity and a difficulty in financing a model which is much more financed with public money than anywhere in the world to respond to international competition”. Make students pay to fight against student precariousness, in short.
The trend was already there, although things had perhaps never been said so directly. For five years, the in-depth reform of the French university system has been underway. Towards a “modernization” liberal. The Minister of Higher Education and Research, Frédérique Vidal, has already succeeded in authorizing universities to charge registration fees to foreign students, in starting to unravel the status of teacher-researchers and in institutionalizing the selection at admission to bachelor’s and master’s degrees. If Emmanuel Macron is re-elected, his next five-year term will be in keeping, if we are to believe the speech of the candidate-president.
Before this release, Emmanuel Macron had first launched into an astonishing satisfaction with the management of the health crisis in universities – we recall that the government waited to see a number of students in soup kitchens to act. But the President of the Republic welcomed all his action in the sector for five years. Notable comicality, one of the proofs of this success would be the “giant leap” that the University of Paris-Saclay would have achieved, “who rose directly to thirteenth place this year” in the Shanghai University Rankings. One “giant leap” one place, since this university was ranked fourteenth last year.
On the strength of this assessment, Emmanuel Macron wants “redouble our efforts so that within ten years, our university will be stronger, that it will attract the best international students and talents”. To do this, the candidate undertook to release more means, without detailing how much, but above all he affirmed that the financial efforts “not enough[ai]not to themselves”.
Another project: access to employment. “The university must first prepare our young people to exercise their future profession. […] In short, it must become more effectively professionalizing,” he asserted. A desire that should lead to the opening of places in short courses, even though it is the highest diplomas that protect the most from unemployment. Overall, it is professionalization, the link with the business world and innovation that are highlighted. A vision “utilitarian” of the university denounce some. The president, who called on international scientists to come to France to “make our planet great again”, seems far away.
institutional big bang
It has been the sea serpent for fifteen years, and the “law relating to the freedoms and responsibilities of universities” carried by Valérie Pécresse in 2007: Emmanuel Macron called for, again, to review the governance of universities. “Yes, we must move towards more autonomy in terms of organization, funding, human resources”, he launched. The objective is obviously to aim “more excellence for universities”. Cascading reforms that have all contributed to diminishing democracy and collegiality in the governance of institutions and the monitoring of careers.
But candidate Macron said nothing about precariousness, the other side of any policy of excellence. However, during the debates on the “research programming law” voted in 2020, most of the protest movement was carried by the staff of the universities who work under precarious status. Emmanuel Macron remained deaf to their demands. This is a real continuity with the policy pursued for five years by Frédérique Vidal: reforms carried out at a forced march, without consultation or taking into account the collective expressions emanating from the authorities of the university community.