Tribune. At the back of the pack for vaccines, research in France also suffers from an unhealthy atmosphere. Of course, many colleagues devote themselves to their profession without counting their hours or their efforts. But this virtuous commitment hides a vicious circle: the inequality of treatment is only increasing between holders and precarious, more and more forced to free work.
Quantitatively, the gap is widening: the number of positions decreases while the number of candidates increases. In 2017, there were 110,000 temporary teachers, against 130,000 today, who alone provide 40% of teaching at the university.
In twenty years, the decrease in the number of lecturer positions (MCF) put up for competition has been drastic (- 65%): we have gone from 3,000 per year at the end of the 1990s, to 1,200 in recent years. . At the same time, the number of students in universities has increased by 15%.
Qualitatively, relations deteriorate, asymmetry increases, because, to compensate for the lack of positions, hidden work increases. We resort to the increasingly less remunerated and even free services of doctoral students or doctors without a post to fill in the gaps, monitor and correct examinations, organize conferences, manage journals, animate the life of their laboratory.
A process is increasingly selective
The situations and the degree of remuneration are varied, but it is often for a non-holder to accept all kinds of underpaid shifts (under the hourly minimum wage) to cover the structural deficits. Some wear themselves out making ends meet, and they still have to “produce” publications to stay in the game. Legally, the non-holder can thus find himself in turn voluntary, contractual (in multiple forms), even self-employed, with zero social contribution.
But the long term has also changed: traditionally, the non-holder could hope for compensation later, by becoming holder in turn, with merit helping. But the process is more and more selective, the future more and more blocked. The institutional structure, the autonomy of the universities, allows the local authorities to vary in the justifications to be given to the students.
The social structure is also involved, to help some to hold on, who find the time to overcome obstacles, and push others to give up, caught up with material contingencies. The psychological aspect is not negligible: a sort of perverse influence is developing on the precarious, encouraged to stay in order to maintain a deficient system. What would become of the mountaineers without the Sherpas?
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