Article source: "Emmanuel Macron veut remettre en cause la quasi-gratuité des études universitaires", Olivier Monod, Libération, 14/01/2022
If Emmanuel Macron wins a second term in office he intends to do away with one of the sacred cows of France’s higher education system: the almost total absence of tuition fees. He made the announcement on Thursday evening during his closing speech at the 50th anniversary congress of the association of French university presidents (la Conférence des presidents d’université). The announcement represents yet another step towards the marketisation of French universities.
Macron said, “we will not be able, in the long term, to maintain a system in which higher education is cost-free for nearly all students.” Following a train of logic which eludes the rest of us, he went on to describe a university system “where a third of students receive maintenance grants and where, nevertheless, we have so many financially insecure students and difficulty financing a model that is more heavily funded by public money than anywhere else in the world to keep up with international competition.” In short, he plans to make students pay tuition fees to tackle student financial insecurity.
"Modernisation" or "Marketisation"?
Things were already heading in this direction, even though it had never been put in so many words. For five years, French higher education has been undergoing in-depth reforms, as part of a “modernisation” process that is moving it towards a market-based system. France’s higher education minister, Frédérique Vidal, has already allowed universities to increase tuition fees for foreign students, dismantled the centralised process of academic recruitment, and institutionalised a selection process for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses. Were Emmanuel Macron to be re-elected, at least if this speech is anything to go by, his second term promises more of the same.
Before making these stark comments, Macron began, surprisingly enough, by talking about his satisfaction with the way the pandemic was being handled at French universities. It’s worth remembering that the government only took action after seeing the long lines of students queueing outside soup kitchens last year. Yet the French president congratulated himself on all the good work he has done in France’s higher education system over the past five years. Amusingly, he claimed that one of the proofs of his success was the “giant leap” Paris-Saclay University has supposedly made, “right up to thirteenth place this year” in the Shanghai Ranking system. It was actually a “giant leap” of only one place, given that the university was ranked fourteenth last year.
Encouraged by this impressive record, Macron wants "to ramp up efforts so that in a decade our universities will be stronger, attracting the brightest international students and talents." To achieve this goal, he has pledged to make more funds available for higher education. Though he hasn’t mentioned any precise figures. He nevertheless insisted that financial efforts alone would not be enough.
"Utilitarian" Education
Another important goal of Macron’s reforms is access to employment. He stated that “the university must first and foremost prepare our young people for their future jobs” and that it must do a better job of training students for work. This is likely to result in an increase in the number of places available on shorter professional diploma courses, despite the fact that, statistically speaking, the most advanced degrees offer the best protection against unemployment. Professional development and preparation for the world of business and innovation are clearly the overarching priorities. Some people have denounced this as a “utilitarian” concept of university education. The president who at one time was calling for international scientists to come to France to “make our planet great again” seems a distant memory.
There is one issue that refuses to go away. It has repeatedly reared its ugly head over the past fifteen years: the governance of universities. It was the subject of the 2007 law on the responsibilities and freedom of universities, presented by former higher education minister Valérie Pécresse. It is an issue which Macron has, once again, sought to readdress: “Yes, we have to work towards more autonomy in terms of organisation, financing and human resources.” The goal is, of course, to try to promote “excellence in the universities.” It has meant wave after wave of reforms that have led to decreasing levels of democracy and collegiality in the governance of universities and the oversight of academic careers.
What about Academic Insecurity?
But the incumbent president has said nothing about financial insecurity, the flip side of the coin of any policy with aspirations of achieving excellence. Yet, during the period when the French parliament was debating the new bill on the management of academic research, which passed into law in 2020, the protest movement against the bill was mainly led by university staff on insecure contracts. Their demands fell on deaf ears. Macron has remained silent. This is entirely in keeping with the way Frédérique Vidal has been implementing her policies over the past five years; she has been strong-arming the universities, rushing through her reforms without any consultation and without paying any heed to what the various organisations and stakeholders within the university community have been saying.
Translated by Tate Neilsen and Charles Cazalis
Editing by Sam Trainor