The State will invest 100 million euros “additional” to attract foreign researchers, especially US researchers, who are threatened “in France when the United States of Donald Trump decreases funds and visas for science, said Emmanuel Macron on Monday, May 5.
During a conference in La Sorbonne, a prestigious Parisian University, the French president denounced everything “Diktat that would consist in saying that a government can say” it is forbidden to seek this or that “, whether” the health of women “,” cyclones “or” climate “.
“No one could think that this great democracy in the world, whose economic model is based so strongly on free science,” he was going to make such a mistake, “he added in an attack on the investigation policy of his US counterpart, which he did not appoint.
Europe, future “refuge” of research scientists
“Faced with threats”, “Europe, yes, it must become a shelter,” added Emmanuel Macron throwing “an appeal of the sorbonne that is aimed at all free spirits who wish to work for science and defend our model.” According to him, “without free science, we lose (…), what does the heart of Western liberal democracies.”
It intends to “allow researchers, researchers from all over the world to create in this free science, open for everyone, join Europe and can work there, search and teach their families in total freedom.”
The 100 million euros of additional public money to attract them will be financed by a reserve of the Public Investment Program of France 2030 that until now has not been assigned, said Elleee.
The Internet platform “Choose France for Science” launched by the Government on April 18 already “aroused more than 30,000 connections, including a third of the United States,” said the head of state.
He also expressed his support for “proposals, including legislative elections, aimed at better protecting scientific refugees”, in an apparent allusion to the text of the law presented by its socialist predecessor François Hollande in the National Assembly.
Protect global databases
For Emmanuel Macron, “what is questioned today, mainly given the fundamental role of the United States for global science, are the main structuring research platforms at a planetary scale, essential databases in epidemiology, weather, which run the risk of stopping, become inaccessible, even in certain irreparably lost lost cases for science.
“France and Europe cannot let this do. That is why we need to take refuge or recreate these databases to take charge,” he said.
Finally, he asked Europe to “spend massively” in “a dozen sites of the century”, in terms of health, space, quantum, artificial intelligence, circular economy, aging, nuclear energy, climate, electronics or fight against misinformation.
Source: BFM TV
