“Unrealistic, even dangerous” : The budgetary path planned for higher education and research in 2025 is harshly judged by the resigned Minister of Control, Sylvie Retailleau, in a letter which includes The world He had a copy, sent on September 4 to former Prime Minister Gabriel Attal, who was due to start preparing the budget before his departure.
The credit limits set by Matignon as a hypothesis for the 2025 budget foresee a reduction of 300 million euros for the field of higher education and research, for a total of 31.3 billion euros, as indicated in a document summarizing the “expenditure limits planned” for each ministry sent by the services of the new Prime Minister, Michel Barnier, to deputies and senators, on Thursday 19 September.
In the introduction to this document, Matignon’s services were careful to point out that it does not commit Mr. Barnier, since it is only a “draft report”established “based on the roof letters signed on August 20th” by his predecessor, Gabriel Attal. These figures constitute a “technical basis for budgeting”but “does not prejudge the modifications and adjustments that may be proposed” by the future government, when it has completed its future finance law.
In her letter, Sylvie Retailleau is particularly concerned about the low level of funding allocated to the reform of scholarships, but also to the Research Programming Act (LPR), two issues on which she had been committed throughout her mandate.
For several months, under the auspices of the Ministry of Solidarity and Health, the Minister of Higher Education has been working on integrating scholarships into the project. “solidarity at the source”. “The downward trend you mention regarding scholarships with social criteria does not include either the revaluation of scales or amounts at the beginning of the 2025 school year, nor, a fortiori, the second stage of the reform that we started in 2023, because the instruction work is now completed.Sylvie Retailleau insists. It will be up to the next government to follow up. »
“Serious error”
As for the investigation, whose dynamics Emmanuel Macron had however promised to relaunch on December 7, 2023, ” continued[ant] to provide more resources » in the LPR the account is not: “From the ceiling you sent me, three hundred and twenty million euros of credit and the creation of 250 jobs are missing”Sylvie Retailleau reckons, noting that 2024 has already marked a major disappointment. In February, the budget for the research and higher education mission was among those most affected by the cancellations of appropriations decided by Bercy, with no less than 904 million euros of savings requested.
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