French scientists protest against research bill

By Ananyo Bhattacharya. A number of higher-education unions and the campaign group Let’s Save Research called a strike today demanding withdrawal of a bill, adopted yesterday by the French cabinet, to reform higher education and research. The bill is aimed to remedy flaws in a 2007 law (loi relative aux libertés et responsabilités des universités; LRU), but has been described by the protestors as being more of the same. “As in Quebec, Great Britain and Chile, French universities are being deliberately driven to bankruptcy by laws,” they said in a joint statement.
A group of anonymous academy rectors also denounced the bill in an op-ed published on the website of L’Express magazine, saying that the law represented a “race to the bottom” and would turn universities into “ships adrift at sea”. Read more...