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PARIS — Higher education and research face a cut of €900 million as part of the €10 billion budget savings demanded by the French Ministry of Economy for 2024. Universities, researchers, senators, and students have denounced the cuts as a severe setback. The outrage extends beyond French borders: Even Nature has dedicated an article to it. The government, however, seeks to reassure French citizens. 

International Indignation

The ministry's decree fell like a hammer blow. Published last February 22, it confirms drastic cuts in the budget for research and higher education. This ministry is not the only one affected by the budget decrease. Following a revision of growth from 1.4% to 1.0% this year, the Minister of Economy Bruno Lemaire has confirmed a €10 billion reduction in the 2024 budget. While research is not the only budget being reduced, it is, after the environmental budget, which is sustaining a €2 billion cut, the most affected in absolute terms. Furthermore, these €900 million represent 3% of the research budget in 2024.

It its article on the cut, Nature laments the budget reduction of €383 million in "Multidisciplinary Scientific and Technological Research." It is the budgets of the French National Centre for Scientific Research, the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research, the National Institute for Research in Digital Science and Technology, and the National Research Institute for Agriculture, Food, and the Environment that will be impacted, as specified by the scientific journal. According to Patrick Lemaire, PhD, a researcher at the University of Montpellier interviewed by Nature, "research agencies will have to allocate 25% less funding for their research activities, once fixed costs such as salary payments are deducted."

Researchers in Revolt 

The National Union of Scientific Research (SNCS) has also been scandalized by this reduced budget. In a statement, the SNCS recalled that "public research is the main victim with very significant budget cuts of over €680 million, including over €380 million for the main funding program for public research organizations, over €190 million for the space program, and over €109 million in the fields of energy, development, and sustainable mobility. These cancellations of budgetary credits for public research, unprecedented in scale, are particularly shocking, incomprehensible, and unacceptable." Thus, the research program "will decrease in constant euros, once again unprecedented!"

Space research, more than any other field, risks being heavily impacted. "The cancellations of credits for the space program represent more than 10% of its budget, in complete contradiction with the highly strategic and so-called 'ambitious' nature of French space policy in a context of 'a very significant increase in budgets devoted to space policy by other powers.'"

Universities Lead the Protest

The French Universities association, which brings together university presidents, has also expressed great concern in a statement, while also putting these fears into perspective. "If, at this stage, only the precautionary reserves of programs 231 (Student Life), 150 (Higher Education and University Research), and 172 (Multidisciplinary Scientific and Technological Research) are affected, and thus neither the student life budget nor the initial 2024 allocations of establishments…are currently affected, the real impact of such arbitrations in the short and medium terms is not without concerns."

In any case, these savings in university budgets will not allow for increased costs related to inflation to be mitigated. "This situation jeopardizes their missions and their functioning and makes it impossible to replace the thousands of retirements of researchers and teacher-researchers because institutions cannot project into the future."

France University also questions the government about its medium and long-term strategy. "The announced cuts also raise questions about the risk of incoherence in public policies: How to compensate for France's lag in international research? How to deploy environmental transition mechanisms without the funds to do so? How to strengthen professionalizing training immediately if we jeopardize the financing of lifelong learning and apprenticeship?"

Lyon 3 Takes Legal Action

Lyon 3 University has taken a more radical approach by challenging this decree before the State Council. "The Government has chosen to exceed its powers and bypass Parliament by modifying, beyond the ceilings provided by law, the budget of the nation. Consequently, Jean Moulin Lyon 3 University has decided to appeal to the State Council to annul this decree and to restore the voice to the national representation," the University announced in a statement.

Angry Senators

Elected officials have also been outraged by these budget cuts. "Multiannual programming laws are supposed to reflect a priority on the part of the state. There is a multiannual programming law on defense, security. I don't think there are any cuts in defense," said Senator Laurent Lafon. 

"Fundamentally, it's a cut. I say it with strong words. Everyone knows that we won't achieve energy conversion, the reindustrialization of France, without massive investments in knowledge and higher education. That's what our neighbors are doing. Germany is a little over 3% of its GDP for higher education and research. We, it's a little over 2%. And it has regressed," said Senator Pierre Ouzoulias. 

"There is obviously a very bad signal sent to the research and higher education sector. We're taking away €700 million for research with a stroke of the pen. In terms of priority, I wonder," said Senator Stéphane Piednoir.

€125 Million Less for Students

The "Student Life" category has also been reduced by €125 million, which has also prompted a reaction from the Federation of General Student Associations (FAGE). "Today FAGE warns about the savings made at the expense of youth and education, which are the future of society. Faced with these announcements, FAGE calls for the cancellation of the cuts allocated to Higher Education and reiterates its demand for an investment to guarantee access to quality public higher education and the maintenance of the little equality of opportunity still available in France."

Ministry Offers Reassurance

Contacted by publicsenat.fr, the Ministry of Higher Education and Research downplayed the amount of these cuts. "Out of the €900 million in canceled credits, these cancellations amount to €588 million for the three programs for which the ministry is responsible and mainly concern precautionary reserves; deferred projects for multiyear real estate, investments, or research equipment; and an adjustment to calls for projects from the National Research Agency," said the ministry. "Establishments' operating resources have been preserved, and all commitments on student life, student housing, and catering will of course be kept. Regarding research, the means (salaries, laboratory resources, etc.) as well as the HR measures of the Research Programming Law will be preserved." The detailed breakdown, line by line, of the envisaged savings, will only be known in several weeks, the ministry concluded.

This story was translated from the Medscape French edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.