# Revolution or Evolution for French Science?

Peter Follette, Barbara Casassus

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Peter Follette, Barbara Casassus. Revolution or Evolution for French Science?. Science, 2003, 301, pp.35-36. 10.1126/science.301.5629.35a. hal-01358781

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Submitted on 12 Feb 2026

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# Revolution or Evolution for French Science?

Controversial changes under way at France's premier biomedical agency strike many as the first steps toward an American-styled system

PARIS—When Karine Clément returned to France after a postdoctoral stint at Stanford University, she had just about everything a young scientist could ask for. For starters, she secured a permanent position with clinical and teaching duties at the Hôtel Dieu Hospital in Paris. Then in June 2002 her scientific ambitions were unfettered when Clément re-

says Françoise Cavaillé, an INSERM developmental biologist at the Saint Antoine Hospital in Paris and a representative of the research union SNCS-FSU. “It’s possible to update the French system without completely switching to another one.”

Bréchot views the reforms as a necessary compromise. “I am trying to steer a middle course between the ultraliberalism of the United States and Great Britain and the ultra-conservatism of France,” he says. In doing so he is steering INSERM into uncharted waters.

## Liberté sans égalité?

In France, research is dominated by a handful of public agencies such as INSERM and the basic research funder CNRS. These agencies coordinate sprawling networks—INSERM alone sponsors 260 research units in universities, institutes, and hospitals nationwide—and employ thousands of civil servant researchers. Young scientists typically join established labs where they often toil for years before winning real independence (Science, 26 April 2002, p. 649). Many observers fear that this old-fashioned approach curbs innovative thinking and has prompted promising researchers to seek greener pastures abroad. The present system “allows time to reflect, to develop a project, and to make mistakes ... which is a luxury,” says Clément. “The question today is, ‘Can we still afford this luxury?’”

Bréchot doesn't think so. Last autumn, for example, he launched an effort to allow researchers to retain civil servant status while venturing beyond INSERM and forming partnerships outside the agency. INSERM invited researchers to apply for “interface contracts” that would give awardees an extra €1500 per month over 3 to 5 years as a reward for forging the outside links. Some 210 candidates applied for the first round of funding, and 86 were shortlisted for around 40 initial awards by a committee of

French and foreign experts. Bréchot aims to sign up between 600 and 800 of INSERM's 2100 researchers by 2006.

The salary top-ups have enraged some INSERM staffers, who view it as a dangerous step toward elitism. A petition against the plan led by Marc Peschanski, an INSERM research director and neurobiologist at the Henri Mondor Hospital in Créteil, gathered more than 500 signatures in the 2 weeks leading up to the application deadline. The petition said that the “shameful” salaries of all INSERM researchers should be increased, not just those of a chosen few. With starting salaries at INSERM running at €2000 per month, Peschanski says, “the bonus is totally out of proportion to the pay scale.”

Bréchot defends the disparities that the contracts and other changes at INSERM will create. “We have to stop reasoning that everyone is equal,” he says. That argument has won its own measure of support. A counter-petition backing the interface contracts so far has more than 200 names.

Bréchot has also stirred controversy by increasing the age at which researchers can obtain a permanent position at INSERM. Until now, a rigid formula has allotted 60% of civil servant posts to applicants under the age of 31. The remaining 40% are distributed in an age-independent manner and typically go to older applicants with more postdoctoral experience. This year, Bréchot has reversed that ratio. He

<figure><img src="image_2.png" /><figcaption>Provocateur. Bréchot has ruffled feathers.</figcaption></figure>

received an Avenir, or Future, grant from INSERM, France's main biomedical research agency. The grant funded her work on obesity, using DNA chips to probe how dietary changes affect gene expression, and allowed her to hire a postdoc and a Ph.D. student. And it helped her organize a network of labs in related areas, including a bioinformatics group that has helped analyze the reams of data from her project. “The award was a real tramline for my career,” she says.

Avenir, created by Christian Bréchot, INSERM's director-general, is one prong of Bréchot's strategy for overhauling the mammoth agency by granting more freedom, more responsibility, and—most controversially—more money to select young scientists. But Bréchot's elitist approach has provoked rancor. The changes come at a difficult time, with scientists reeling from deep cuts in the nation's research budget and in no mood for reforms. Many see Bréchot's programs as part of an unnecessary shift toward a sink-or-swim system. “If you look at publications, for example, French science isn't doing so badly,”

## 2003 Research Budget in Millions of Euros

<table><thead><tr><td></td><td>CNRS</td><td>INSERM</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Budget Act*</td><td>2557.3</td><td>562.5</td></tr><tr><td>Spending carried over from 2002</td><td>172.1</td><td>26.3</td></tr><tr><td>Spending cuts (14 March)</td><td>79.3</td><td>18.3</td></tr><tr><td>Total funds available†</td><td>2650.1</td><td>570.5</td></tr></tbody></table>

**Looks can be deceptive.** Thanks to funds carried over from last year, CNRS and INSERM have more money to play with than the government had budgeted for them in 2003, even after steep cuts in March. But the agencies are still reeling from heavy cuts—as much as 45% since January 2002, research unions estimate—in capital spending, the largest category in their budgets. Taking that into account, budgets in 2003 are down 33.8% for the CNRS and 28.1% for INSERM, asserts Henri-Edouard Audier, a board member of the main research union SNCS-FSU.

Prospects for 2004 are no brighter. Although research minister Claudie Haigneré has insisted that France will boost R&D spending in an effort to achieve the European Union goal of 3% of gross domestic product by 2010, the country is under growing pressure from the European Commission to shrink its ballooning budget deficit. It's widely expected that France will cut spending overall next year, and that R&D is far down the list of the government's priorities.

—B.C.

<footnote>* Includes pluriannual allocations and capital spending limits.</footnote>

<footnote>† Assumes lifting of spending freeze; calculated by Science.</footnote>
believes candidates should have a longer track record as postdocs or in temporary posts before settling into permanent jobs.

Some critics charge that forcing researchers to spend more years on temporary contracts is unfair and will drive young people from research. Others view the change as akin to shuffling the deck chairs on the *Titanic*. Even though INSERM expects to lose around 30% of its researchers to retirement over the next 8 years, the budget cuts are hobbling its ability to replace them. “Things are becoming completely intolerable, and people are quitting research or going elsewhere,” asserts Peschanski.

## À l'Américaine?

Bréchot insists that his reforms are the only way for INSERM to retain its leadership role in French biomedical research. The government is now mulling whether to create new institutes focusing on areas such as nutrition, cardiovascular disease, or diabetes. Bréchot says he supports the concept and hopes that a

“redynamized” INSERM, as he terms it, will convince the government that the agency is capable of directing the new institutes.

He faces an uphill battle. It's still unclear, for instance, whether INSERM will manage the research component of a new National Cancer Institute announced last March by President Jacques Chirac. And in April, the board of directors of ANRS, the French AIDS agency—in a decision not yet endorsed by the government—voted to renew the agency's mandate for another 6 years, extending its life independent of INSERM despite Bréchot's desire to absorb it.

INSERM's future may depend largely on Claude Griscelli, Bréchot's predecessor at INSERM. Griscelli is now preparing a set of proposals, requested by the government, on revamping biomedical research in France. The report is due out in autumn, after which the government plans to submit a framework law for research that could adopt many of Griscelli's recommendations.

In a time of tight budgets, the prospect of

broader reforms than Bréchot has already wrought is deeply unpopular. “[I’m] strongly against the idea of making structural reforms without money,” says Pierre Corvol, chair of experimental medicine at the Collège de France in Paris and outgoing president of INSERM’s Scientific Council. Peschanski is of the same mind: “[Reforms] make no sense in the context of a budget that’s been cut by 20% or 30%. The problem now is figuring out how to pay for antibodies ... and we’re having trouble doing that.”

Nevertheless, change is coming. Research minister Claudie Haigneré has not hidden her appreciation of the “great originality” and “extreme flexibility” of U.S. science, and at a recent colloquium she asked, rhetorically, “What has led American research to a position of uncontested international preeminence?” If Bréchot has the answer, it’s a very hard sell indeed.

—PETER FOLLETTE AND BARBARA CASASSUS

Peter Follette writes from Ville d'Avray, and Barbara Casassus writes from Paris.