Tribune. To respond to France’s dependence on foreign economies, Emmanuel Macron is launching a 30 billion euro plan to reindustrialize the country. But the heart of the problem lies upstream: an education system which no longer manages to train for science and industry.
In 2004, France, a leader in civilian nuclear power, launched the construction of the world’s first EPR reactor, in Flamanville (Manche). But, seventeen years later, the work, which was to last eight years, is still not finished. Meanwhile, China has inaugurated an EPR reactor, built in just nine years. Faced with the failure of Flamanville, EDF deplores “The loss of skills” linked to retirements and the gradual disappearance of specialized masters in nuclear energy. At this rate, the new nuclear plan of the President of the Republic risks joining Flamanville in the list of aborted projects for lack of teams to carry them out.
This loss of skills is not limited to high-tech industries. Plumbers, carpenters, building engineers, IT project managers: in October 2021, there were 70,000 unfilled positions in industry, and 15,000 to 80,000 in digital professions. No industrial policy can work without enough engineers and technicians.
French research decline
However, the French university system does not train enough. According to figures from the Ministry of Higher Education, Research and Innovation, mathematics, physics and biology are among the least requested courses at university, with ten times fewer applications than psychology, languages or law. Hence the growing inability to recruit science teachers and the decline of French research, whose funding is dwindling.
The grandes écoles do not correct this imbalance. Business schools have continued to multiply, from 10,000 students in 1960 to 200,000 today, while engineering schools are increasing the number of finance and management courses. Behind the inflation of Anglo-American-sounding diplomas (MS, MSc, bachelor) hides less and less specialized training.
So where do you find the engineers the industry needs? The hundreds of thousands of young people trained to become managers will soon have no one to manage. To justify an explosion in tuition fees, the grandes écoles must sell dreams. But we cannot build the industrial future with soft skills [« compétences comportementales »] and marketing.
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