The “French Paradox”: The Republican Ethos and the Quest for Excellence
Two main subjects will be highlighted: redistribution policy towards different academic institutions and redistribution policy towards the most performing universities.
French HE system is an articulated one (Pitzalis, 2019). It consists of about 3500 institutions: universities and communities of universities; Grandes écoles (GE)(engineering schools, management schools) (these are considered prestigious institutions); graduate schools of applied arts or architecture and also preparatory courses to entry into the GE (Campus France, 2024).
Firstly, concerning the redistribution policy towards different academic institutions, it can be noticed that the expenditure per student is unequally distributed, since it amounts to 16,370 for students in preparatory classes to GE, while for university students it is €. 10,270 (MESR, 2023).
Secondly, concerning the redistribution policy towards the most performing universities, academic ranking has been an important argument to justify the clustering policy implemented in France since the 2000s (Barats, 2011). Consequently, in 2011, thanks to the Initiative d'Excellence reform, 10 French universities were merged into world-class institutions with a total budget of around €7.7 billion (Cremonini et al., 2013; Highman, 2019).
In fact, this maneuver produced a tangible change. Indeed, in 2011, the number of French universities in the top 500 positions rose from 16 to 65. In 2019, this number remains stable in the ARWU ranking. However, the high pressure to publish and to find different sources of funding (in order to reach the top level) have made researchers and lecturers increasingly dissatisfied with their working conditions, as reported by Fréville (2001) and Tandilashvili (2022).
All these aspects will be discussed during the presentation.