Academic freedom: where does France stand?

Mass lay­offs with­in research organ­isa­tions, with­draw­al of grants, verbal attacks against research­ers and aca­dem­ics, the imple­ment­a­tion of “Gold Stand­ard Sci­ence” which attempts to impose its stand­ards on sci­ence from the out­side… The offens­ive waged by the Trump admin­is­tra­tion against sci­ence and uni­ver­sit­ies since Janu­ary 2025, of unpre­ced­en­ted fero­city, is deep­en­ing the erosion of aca­dem­ic free­dom in the United States that began in 2020. But what about France? While aca­dem­ic free­dom still holds out, the threats are very real.

The first chal­lenge for any­one examin­ing aca­dem­ic free­dom is that there is no agreed-upon defin­i­tion of the concept in France, with the term rarely appear­ing in French law. The plur­al form is found in Art­icle L952‑2 of the Edu­ca­tion Code, which recog­nises it as “the guar­an­tee of excel­lence in French high­er edu­ca­tion and research”. The same art­icle also sets out the basis of this free­dom reserved for aca­dem­ics: “full inde­pend­ence” and “com­plete free­dom of expres­sion in the per­form­ance of their teach­ing duties and research activ­it­ies, sub­ject to the con­straints imposed by (…) the prin­ciples of tol­er­ance and objectiv­ity¹.”.

So, bey­ond the let­ter of the law, what is the spir­it of the text? “Aca­dem­ic free­dom is a pro­fes­sion­al free­dom that is pos­it­ively defined as ‘a respons­ib­il­ity towards know­ledge’, to quote Paul Ric­oeur. It can only be fully under­stood by tak­ing two ele­ments into account: the idea of the uni­ver­sity and aca­dem­ic eth­ics. It pre­sup­poses the attain­ment of aca­dem­ic qual­i­fic­a­tions and adher­ence to a meth­od­o­logy and stand­ards estab­lished and recog­nised by peers. It is for these reas­ons that res­ist­ance to extern­al inter­fer­ence is a nat­ur­al con­sequence,” explains Olivi­er Beaud.

We can there­fore con­sider that aca­dem­ic free­dom has two insep­ar­able aspects. The first, indi­vidu­al free­dom, encom­passes three freedoms gran­ted to aca­dem­ics: free­dom of research, teach­ing and expres­sion with­in the scope of their duties and with­in the lim­its of sci­entif­ic integ­rity. The second aspect, this time insti­tu­tion­al, con­cerns the com­munity, in oth­er words the uni­ver­sity, which must be able to gov­ern itself. In par­tic­u­lar, by choos­ing its own pres­id­ent or dean, recruit­ing its own mem­bers, and enjoy­ing full inde­pend­ence from extern­al powers “wheth­er polit­ic­al, eco­nom­ic, reli­gious or student-led”.

“In France, how­ever, there is a cer­tain tend­ency to invoke it indis­crim­in­ately because the concept is little known and very poorly under­stood. In the belief that we are pro­tect­ing it, we mis­takenly equate it with free­dom of expres­sion,” adds Olivi­er Beaud.

By implic­a­tion, an infringe­ment of aca­dem­ic free­dom could there­fore be defined as an action that, without legit­im­ate jus­ti­fic­a­tion, restricts or hinders the exer­cise of the freedoms of research, teach­ing, the dis­sem­in­a­tion of know­ledge and sci­entif­ic expres­sion by aca­dem­ic staff, or the autonomy of aca­dem­ic insti­tu­tions. Such infringe­ments may be lim­ited in time and place, or they may be much more widespread.

Among them are instances of for­eign inter­fer­ence, which aim to influ­ence, exploit or com­prom­ise French aca­dem­ic activ­it­ies through the fund­ing of chairs, the recruit­ment of research­ers, or pres­sure exer­ted on nation­als of the coun­tries con­cerned, includ­ing stu­dents and lec­tur­ers. Sen­at­or Gattolin’s inform­a­tion report², pub­lished in 2021, estab­lished that France was “already a major tar­get of these oper­a­tions”, and that they were car­ried out mainly by China, but also by Rus­sia, Tur­key and cer­tain Per­sian Gulf states, although none could “boast of the resources and scale of the Chinese strategy”.

Even more vis­ible are con­vic­tions, depriva­tion of liberty (“par­tic­u­larly in Iran, Rus­sia or Tunisia” accord­ing to a report³ on aca­dem­ic free­dom com­mis­sioned by France Uni­versités and authored by Stéphanie Balme, pub­lished in Octo­ber 2025) or the deni­al of access to research sites for research­ers abroad. 

The very fact that these abus­ive law­suits – his­tor­ic­ally brought against civil soci­ety act­iv­ists, whis­tleblowers or journ­al­ists – are now tar­get­ing aca­dem­ics is telling in itself.

In France, abus­ive leg­al pro­ceed­ings tend to take the form of SLAPP suits—legal actions brought not to win the case, but to intim­id­ate or hinder the actions of a per­son express­ing them­selves in pub­lic debate. A min­is­teri­al inquiry⁴ has been record­ing cases involving aca­dem­ics and research­ers since 2022: 10 in 2022, 8 in 2023 and 5 in 2024. These fig­ures may be under­es­tim­ated, due to a lack of sys­tem­at­ic reporting.

Whilst the fig­ures speak for them­selves, the very fact that these abus­ive law­suits – his­tor­ic­ally brought against civil soci­ety act­iv­ists, whis­tleblowers or journ­al­ists – are now tar­get­ing aca­dem­ics is telling in itself. “Gen­er­ally speak­ing, they are brought by politi­cians or private com­pan­ies. But in recent years we have also seen law­suits between aca­dem­ics: Didi­er Raoult, in par­tic­u­lar, has sued sev­er­al of his peers for defam­a­tion after they cri­ti­cised his work, such as Karine Lacombe. He lost all cases,” explains Olivi­er Beaud.

Any polit­ic­al inter­fer­ence, even of a sym­bol­ic nature, in uni­ver­sity life also war­rants atten­tion. In early 2021, Frédérique Vid­al, then Min­is­ter for High­er Edu­ca­tion and Research, announced before the Nation­al Assembly her inten­tion to com­mis­sion “an assess­ment of all research being car­ried out in our coun­try,” hav­ing pre­vi­ously stated on Cnews⁵ that “Islamo-left­ism is infect­ing soci­ety as a whole, and that uni­ver­sit­ies were not immune”. Aside from the sheer scale of the under­tak­ing, this ini­ti­at­ive bore a strik­ing resemb­lance to an attempt by the gov­ern­ment to exert con­trol over one of the university’s core domains: the sov­er­eign choice of its research. Frédérique Vidal’s state­ments caused an out­cry in the sci­entif­ic com­munity and the media and sparked end­less con­tro­versy. The invest­ig­a­tion “to date, has nev­er been launched”, states the Balme report.

To be legit­im­ately con­cerned about the reck­less beha­viour of stu­dents is one thing; to inter­fere in the intern­al man­age­ment of a pub­lic high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion is quite another.

We also recall that Gab­ri­el Attal, then Prime Min­is­ter, saw fit to inter­vene dur­ing a board meet­ing at Sci­ences Po Par­is in March 2024. Fol­low­ing an unau­thor­ised pro-Gaza demon­stra­tion organ­ised on the uni­ver­sity cam­pus, a stu­dent mem­ber of the Uni­on of Jew­ish Stu­dents was reportedly denied access, accord­ing to Le Monde⁶. “This inter­ven­tion was a clear viol­a­tion of aca­dem­ic free­dom, in its insti­tu­tion­al aspect,” com­ments Olivi­er Beaud. “To be legit­im­ately con­cerned about the reck­less beha­viour of stu­dents is one thing; to inter­fere in the intern­al man­age­ment of a pub­lic high­er edu­ca­tion insti­tu­tion is quite another.”

Dur­ing the same peri­od, cer­tain loc­al author­it­ies, such as the AURA and Île-de-France regions, also decided to make the grant­ing of pub­lic sub­sidies con­di­tion­al upon the adop­tion of a “repub­lic­an” charter or “in defence of French val­ues and sec­u­lar­ism”, which “implies that uni­ver­sit­ies are, de facto, fail­ing to ful­fil their leg­al and civic oblig­a­tions,” accord­ing to the Balme report.

The tense cli­mate that has pre­vailed for sev­er­al years may also have con­trib­uted to increased stig­mat­isa­tion or pub­lic cri­ti­cism of aca­dem­ics by vari­ous pres­sure groups, which can extend well bey­ond the uni­ver­sity. A “cli­mate of sus­pi­cion” is said to weigh par­tic­u­larly heav­ily on research­ers speak­ing out “on con­tem­por­ary issues related to Israel,” accord­ing to the Balme report, which cites an example of a pub­lic accus­a­tion of anti-Semit­ism lev­elled against a researcher’s work by oth­er research­ers. How does this sup­posed cli­mate trans­late into tan­gible actions? And more broadly, are accus­a­tions against research­ers and lec­tur­ers fre­quent? Are they on the rise? What types of accus­a­tions are made? Who makes them? In the absence of an offi­cial census, or of extens­ive peer-reviewed sci­entif­ic lit­er­at­ure, it is dif­fi­cult to form a pre­cise pic­ture of the phe­nomen­on and its scope.

One fig­ure may, how­ever, give an ini­tial idea of its scale. In 2025, 277 lec­tur­ers and research­ers sub­mit­ted requests for func­tion­al pro­tec­tion, a mech­an­ism that allows any pub­lic ser­vant to ask their admin­is­tra­tion to pro­tect them if they are implic­ated due to their duties. This meas­ure remains, how­ever, rather vague: there is no guar­an­tee that all these requests relate to breaches of aca­dem­ic free­dom, nor that every breach gives rise to such a request. The lack of data could, how­ever, be rec­ti­fied in the com­ing years: a draft bill on aca­dem­ic free­dom, still under dis­cus­sion in both cham­bers, provides for the cre­ation of a ded­ic­ated obser­vat­ory with­in the HCERES.

Anoth­er grey area is the pro­por­tion of lec­tur­ers and research­ers who, in this con­text of dif­fuse and mul­tiple pres­sures, choose not to exer­cise their aca­dem­ic free­dom to the full. The Gat­tolin report had already warned of increas­ingly fre­quent self-cen­sor­ship in aca­dem­ic circles for fear of dam­aging rela­tions with for­eign part­ners. “Dur­ing inter­views, many aca­dem­ics told us that they ques­tion the lim­its of what they can legit­im­ately say or write, even when they know they have the right, or indeed the duty, to do so,” notes the Balme report. How far does this self-cen­sor­ship go? Here again, it is impossible to say, for whilst the sub­ject is begin­ning to be ana­lysed in the United States, it has yet to be stud­ied in France.

Finally, there are the threats we per­haps think about the least: those arising from the uni­ver­sity sys­tem itself. “The main threats are not ideo­lo­gic­al in nature. That may change, of course. If the far right were to come to power, we would be at great risk of exper­i­en­cing what the United States is going through today… But today, the most dan­ger­ous threats are struc­tur­al, fin­an­cial and admin­is­trat­ive,” argues Olivi­er Beaud. “In France, uni­ver­sit­ies are not truly autonom­ous, as they are under the fin­an­cial con­trol of the state and weighed down by bur­eau­cracy. The LRU [Editor’s note: the Act of 10^th August 2007 on the freedoms and respons­ib­il­it­ies of uni­ver­sit­ies], which was inten­ded to improve the situ­ation, has only made it worse. Anoth­er scourge, imposed by uni­ver­sity pres­id­ents: the trans­fer of admin­is­trat­ive tasks to lec­tur­ers and researchers.”

Little by little, the sys­tem is thus lead­ing to its own erosion. Weakened, it may struggle to cope with the extern­al threats that may lie ahead. Some, such as the Balme report and France Uni­versités, there­fore argue for the con­sti­tu­tion­al enshrine­ment of aca­dem­ic free­dom. “In prac­tice, this would amount to pla­cing its pro­tec­tion in the hands of the Coun­cil of State, which wrongly views aca­dem­ics as mere civil ser­vants,” says Olivi­er Beaud. For the leg­al expert, the urgent pri­or­ity is there­fore not to enshrine aca­dem­ic free­dom in the con­sti­tu­tion or even to legis­late on it, but to bet­ter pro­tect the status of academics—currently gov­erned by a simple decree that the gov­ern­ment can amend at will—by adopt­ing an ordin­ary law that could draw inspir­a­tion from the organ­ic law pro­tect­ing magis­trates. Such secur­ity would then help aca­dem­ics to defend their own freedom.

Interview by Anne Orliac