US-style system is failing in France, say academics

Left-leaning group of researchers and politicians laments decline of universities’ “public service mission”

A group of 35 academics and left-leaning politicians has published a letter in the Le Monde newspaper denouncing continued underfunding of higher education and research and condemning widening inequalities between institutions, saying France has adopted “an American-style system but without an American level of funding”.

The authors, who include Patrick Michel, a leading planetary scientist, and Pierre Rouillard, a well-known historian and archaeologist, point to a gradual deterioration in conditions—typified by student overcrowding and staffing cuts—in most universities over recent years.