Our foreign correspondence
FRANCE
Universities two years after
CHARLES HARGROVE
Paris `The university situation is good on the whole. The new institutions are being set up. The statutes of fifty-five universities have been approved. Those of ten others are about to be. Elections [to university councils] are in preparation.' M. Olivier Guichard, the Minister of Education, told a recent cabinet meeting, adding a cautionary word to the effect that 'it is necessary to judge at their real value the incidents of Nanterre. Let us guard against judging the whole on the basis of what concerns only one university' Many Frenchmen, including a good number of academics themselves who, rather naturally, have found it most difficult to reconcile themselves to the disappearance of the 'Uni- versity of Papa' two years ago, regard this assessment as hopelessly Panglossian. The traditional Napoleonic university was dealt a fatal blow by the events of May and June 1968. It was officially condemned by M.
Edgar Faure's d'orientation'. which initiated a peaceful far-reaching revolution of the old sacrosanct edifice of French learn- ing, and introduced into an institution built upon the threefold principles of centrali- sation, compartmentation, and--literally- 'ex cathedra' methods of instruction, the new trilogy of autonomy, `pluridisciplinarity,' and participation.
This means very briefly that in place of the old bureaucratic system' where universities were all closely subject to control—some- times of an extremely--pettifogging character —of the Ministry of Education and its officials in Paris, not least through its power of the purse; of a system which for 700 years had worked on the basis of separate and distinct disciplines of learning (law, sciences, medicines, etc); and where the 'magisterial lecture' was the rule, the reform substituted seventy autonomous universities and instit- utions of higher learning with their own statutes and elected councils responsible for their own administration and budget; `pluri- disciplinary universities', like civilisation and language at Paris in (one of the thirteen new Paris universities) or medicine and social sciences and psychology at Paris v; and study groups of thirty or more students, where dis- cussion and active participation are encour- aged. Examinations have also been com- pletely revolutionised: the choice now lies between the old year-end examination, and frequent periodical control tests.
It was inevitable that such a far-reaching reform could not merely be produced by the vote of a law or a stroke of the• pen on the bottom of a Ministerial decree. It had to be put into practice. For such a purpose two years, everyone agrees, can hardly be re- garded as excessive. Not only were there all sorts of practical, material difficulties to be overcome: new buildings had to be put up; new and smaller administrations created and staffed; new procedures devised based on
what more than one disgusted professor has described as 'government by assemblies'—a term of abuse ever since the excesses of the fourth republic. But time-honoured habits and accepted conceptions of learning had to be changed; entrenched prejudices and privi- leges dismantled; and new calls made on both professors and students alike, on whose active participation the reform, ultimately, would stand or fall.
The great mass of French students, who at the beginning of this academic year, add up to the impressive total of 700,000 as against less than a quarter of that figure two years ago, remained largely apathetic during the barricades of May. Revolutions are pro- voked by active minorities; so are necessary reforms. But they are, alas, not the same ones. The leftists who led the movements of May, and who continue to cause trouble in Nanterre, Vincennes, and one or two pro- vincial universities, are not interested in the reform of the universities, but in their de- struction pure and simple as symbols of `bourgeois learning'. Their aim, since the d'orientation' was voted in November 1968, has been to torpedo the reform, to demon- strate in every way that it does not work, to prevent anyone from making it work.
It is difficult for an Englishman, accus- tomed to the less political and violent climate of academic life at home, even if it does have its wild moments, to appreciate the shock tactics of the leftist groups, an infinite minority in all universities, but determined, well trained, well armed and utterly ruthless, insulting and assaulting professors and un- committed students, molesting and spitting on them, ridiculing them, covering their heads with dustbins, as did the Dean of the Faculty of Letters of Nanterre earlier this year, causing widespread material damage (the Minister estimated it at 70 million francs this year) and inflicting serious bodily in- juries—in a word, bringing the whole works to a standstill, as in the case of the Nanterre Faculty of Law for a week last month. .
At the other end of the scare are those pro- fessors who have never really reconciled themselves to the reform: the loss of their unchallenged and established position and privileges, and their total lack of responsi- bility for the actual administration of the universities. As one Dean told me, the pro- fessors come and give their lectures and then go home, without bothering one second about what goes on in the interval, when the leftists are on the rampage. Keeping the peace, they feel, is not and never was their concern. Some are not content to be passive and to refuse to assume new responsibilities. They attempt in every way to turn or ob- struct the reform, to avenge themselves for what happened in May 1968. They are assid- uous in- voting for elections to the councils which govern the universities, where the students, in most cases are not, and thus get the whip hand on the administration and the organisation of studies.
In between these two poles is the large amorphous mass of students, which merely wants to work and obtain a degee; which is sick and tired of having to participate in elections—new ones are in progress now to elect permanent councils which will take the place of the provisional ones elected in the spring of 1969, and abstentionism is around 60 per cent or more. flow to mobilise this mass to thwart the destructive attempts of the leftist groups and the obstructive attempts
of the academic rearguard is the Minister of Education's problem and permanent head- ache. This amorphous mass is apolitical. It responds immediately to a reflex of solidar- ity when academic franchises are threatened, or the police makes an appearance on the campuses. But it is unwilling to assume the responsibility of voting or allowing itself to be elected to councils, or checking the leftist provocation which makes the intervention of the police necessary in the last resort.
In spite of all that, the Minister of Edu- cation is right in claiming that in the over- whelming majority of French universities, the overwhelming majority of students is working, and working better than it did be- fore the reform. But neither the press, nor parliamentary and public opinion bothers about them. It is the lunatic and incendiary fringe which inevitably gets all the attention. The fact remains however that, as one education expert described it, the mood in French universities on the eve of the decisive year when the new institutions are finally to be put into place is morose and dejected. Beyond the relatively straightforward ques- tion of agitation and repression, there is the far deeper one of a crisis of confidence and faith. No one believes in the idea of a uni- versity. The old Humboldt conception of the ivory tower, the sea of learning for learning's sake, has been exploded. The French uni- versity is looked upon by most of those who frequent it as a public service like the rail- ways. But what it exists for, and where it leads to no one is quite sure. The basic prob- lem of adapting academic learning to the needs of modern French society, of insuring that a degree is a passport to useful employ- ment, remains entire. It will be the task of the National Council of Higher Education and Research, to be elected by the councils of all the new universities in France (how has not yet been decided) to grasp this for- midable nettle.
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