The situation of higher education in France is dramatic, and many students have understood this well. The national day of mobilization for Higher Education and Research organized on Thursday, December 11, and the site https://universiteenruines.tumblr.com. send a clear warning to our political leaders.
For many institutions, it is impossible to maintain appearances: deteriorated buildings, unheated lecture halls, and dilapidated toilets often poorly maintained are compounded by the lack of technical resources available to students during classes and practical workshops.
The increasingly drastic budget cuts each year, which burden the finances of our “autonomous” universities, also freeze any capacity to generate job prospects. The 2015 budget allocated to Higher Education and Research unfortunately confirms these concerns, barely hidden by the myth of new job creations promoted by the Government.
In Nice, the collective regrets that the Municipality has not decided to take more action on existing campuses rather than prophesizing hypothetical “new faculties” that are either unfunded or destined to dissolve in governmental promises anyway.
The Carlone campus is particularly revealing of this state of affairs, accumulating to the point of caricature all the issues: from deterioration on all floors to the glaring lack of tools available to students. Although representative of many campuses in our country, these study conditions are unworthy of the fifth-largest city in France and its ambition to become a great university city.
Its leaders must urgently address these issues, at the risk of seeing the influence of our Universities collapse both nationally and locally.
At the territorial level, local elected officials must make efforts and provide faculties and students with a working and developmental environment that is dignified, modern, sustainable, and appropriate.
Romain CARDELLI,
Collectif Marianne 06
