French research groups urged to welcome scientists fleeing Trump cuts
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Scientists protested in cities throughout the US, with many of their French counterparts joining a solidarity march in Toulouse, southwestern France.
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Demonstrators gather for the Stand Up For Science rally near the Lincoln Memorial, on March 7, 2025. (AP)
French officials are urging their country's research organizations to consider welcoming scientists who have left the United States owing to President Donald Trump's funding cuts, AFP reported on Sunday.
Trump's administration has reduced federal research funding and attempted to remove hundreds of federal employees focusing on health and climate research.
"Many well-known researchers are already questioning their future in the United States," France's minister for higher education and research, Philippe Baptiste, said in a letter to the country's institutions, emphasizing that France "would naturally wish to welcome" several of them.
Baptiste requested that research leaders offer him "concrete proposals on the topic, both on priority technologies and scientific fields."
In a statement given to AFP Sunday, he said the administration is "committed, and will rise to the occasion."
This Monday, Aix-Marseille University in southern France announced the establishment of a project aimed at inviting US scholars, particularly those focusing on climate change.
It established a new initiative to welcome scientists who "may feel threatened or hindered" in the US and desire "to continue their work in an environment conducive to innovation, excellence, and academic freedom."
On Friday, scientists protested in cities throughout the US, with many of their French counterparts joining a solidarity march in Toulouse, southwestern France.
Read more: US Campus crisis looms as schools warn of Trump cuts: Report
French scientists, including Nobel Prize winners Esther Duflo, an economist, and Anne L'Huillier, a physicist, criticized "unprecedented attacks" on US research in an editorial published in Le Monde daily, saying they endangered "one of the pillars of democracy."
Yasmine Belkaid, head of France's Pasteur public health agency, told French daily La Tribune in an article published on Sunday that she gets "calls every day" from European and American scientists working in the United States searching for work.
"It is time for us to position ourselves as central players in this research ecosystem, which is necessary for our economic independence," Belkaid said.
