The New Reform in French Higher Education

Abstract

At the risk of shocking my readers, I must, as must many of my French colleagues, confess to a deep perplexity about the title of this paper. Is the word 'reforms', or even the concept of reform, appropriate to the tragedy with which French higher education has been plagued, since the spring of 1983? Some commentators are even speaking of it as a death-blow to the universities [1]. Even if their pessimism is clearly instigated, at least in part, by political opinions, their judgement should not be disqualified since they are authoritative politicians from academia. France has been involved in the enactment of a new law called the Savary Law (Mr Savary is the present Minister of Education), which was voted at the end of 1983 after a highly controversial debate within the Assemblee Nationale and the Senate [2]. Although the majority of the Senate was opposed to it because of its political composition the French Constitution gives the last word to the Assemblde Nationale provided that the law remains in accordance with constitutional rules. The text has raised scattered street protests from various groups of students. It has raised unanimous hostility among the intellectual establishment from both the right and the left. Raymond Barre, the late Raymond Aron [3], the Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences have expressed, not surprisingly, their criticisms. But great intellectuals and scholars, well known for their left-wing political convictions, have also clearly condemned the initiative taken by the socialist-communist government. M. Duverger, L. Schwartz [4], A. Touraine, E. Leroy-Ladurie are among others who have publicly demonstrated their disapproval of what they consider to be the deleterious higher education policy this law will entail. The 1968 Faure Law on higher education can be considered sympathetically as a genuine achievement because, after all, it tried to respond to the dissatisfactions of hundreds of thousands of students. It was oriented to youth interests, and inspired by youth dreams. The 1983 initiative, in spite of its appearances, is inspired by the vested interests of unionised and highly politicised junior faculties. It cannot claim the same sympathy. The 1968 orientation law was voted in unanimously by the Assemblee Nationale, except for six communist representatives who abstained whereas the 1983 law has been voted in unanimously by the left-wing majority in Parliament and unanimously rejected by the opposition. This clearly means that the whole higher education question is nowadays a politically biased issue and does not offer an opportunity for bipartisan agreement. Fifty-five distinguished senior professors followed by 1000 of