The AFP learned on Sunday that French officials are urging their country’s research institutes to consider welcoming scientists abandoning the United States due to a lack of financing President Donald Trump.
Ever since Trump returned to the White House in January, his government has reduced federal research funds and has tried to dismiss hundreds of federal workers working on health and climate research.
The French Minister of Education and Research, Philip Baptist, wrote in a letter to the country’s institutions, “Many well -known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States.”
“We naturally want to welcome a certain number of them.”
The Baptist urged research leaders to send him “solid suggestions on this topic on both the priority technologies and the scientific fields.”
He added in a statement sent to AFP on Sunday that the government “is determined, and will arrive on the occasion”.
This week, the Aix-Maresille University in the south of France announced that it was creating a program dedicated to welcome US researchers, especially those working on climate change.
It announces a new program to welcome scientists that “may” feel a threat or obstruction in the United States “and” want to continue their work in a suitable environment for innovation, virtue and educational freedom “.
In addition to Trump’s billionaire Tech Tykone Elon Musk’s supervision, the US leader has withdrawn Washington from the World Health Organization and the Paris climate agreement.
In the protest, scientists staged a rally in the cities of the United States on Friday, with many of their French counterparts participating in a demonstration of solidarity in the southwestern city of Tolos.
– ‘opportunity’ for French research –
In an editorial published in the Lee Monde newspaper, French experts, including Nobel Laureate Easter Doflow, a economist, and a physicist, NL Hillier, condemned the “extraordinary attacks” on American science, saying that they had “offended one of the pillars of democracy”.
Yasmin Belcide, director of the French Pasteur Public Health Institute, told the French newspaper Law Tribune in an interview on Sunday that they received “calls” from European and American scientists based in the United States in search of jobs.
French research “,” You can call it a tragic opportunity, but this is the same opportunity, “Belcade, once reported as an immunology researcher in the United States.
“Now is the time to position ourselves as a central player in this research ecosystem, which is essential for our economic freedom.”
Due to some grant suspension, some US universities have reduced the number of students accepted in doctors’ programs or research positions.
Other goals of deductions include the National Oceanic and Women’s Administration (NOAA) – a US agency responsible for weather forecasts, climate analysis and maritime protection – hundreds of scientists and experts have already been allowed.
Noaa and the United States were essential to provide life -saving data for the weather and global climate monitoring, the UN Meteorological Organization said.
The appointment of Trump’s famous vaccine Robert F. Kennedy Junior as the head of the Department of Health and Human Services has also incited many scientists.
BUR-VAC-LBY/RLP/RMB
