France ‘stands with Harvard' and offers to welcome foreign students
'We stand with universities facing the threat of government control, restriction to their funding, constraints on their curricula or research projects,' Jean-Noël Barrot said during a commencement address at the high-profile HEC business school in Paris.
'We stand with Harvard faculty, with Harvard students, facing unjustified stress and anxiety right now,' he added in English.
'Should US courts uphold decisions to ban international students, France will offer a safe place to complete their degrees,' he said.
Universities and research facilities in the United States have come under increasing political and financial pressure under Trump, including with threats of massive federal funding cuts.
Harvard has been at the forefront of Trump's campaign against top American universities after it defied his calls to submit to oversight of its curriculum, staffing, student recruitment and 'viewpoint diversity'.
A US court last week put a temporary stay on Trump's latest effort to stop foreign students from enrolling at Harvard, a day after a White House proclamation had sought to bar most new international students at Harvard from entering the country, and said existing foreign enrollees risked having their visas terminated.
Advertisement
The US government has already cut around $3.2 billion of federal grants and contracts benefiting Harvard and pledged to exclude the institution from future federal funding.
France and the European Union are seeking to encourage disgruntled researchers to relocate from the United States to Europe.
European Commission head Ursula von der Leyen said last month that the EU would launch a new incentives package worth €500 million to make the 27-nation bloc 'a magnet for researchers'.
French President Emmanuel Macron in April unveiled plans for a funding programme to help national universities and other research bodies cover the cost of bringing foreign scientists to the country.
READ ALSO
:
How easy is it to move to France as a researcher or scientist?✎
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
France 24
31 minutes ago
- France 24
Iranian Nobel laureates, Cannes winner urge halt to Iran-Israel conflict
"We demand the immediate halt of uranium enrichment by the Islamic Republic, the cessation of military hostilities, an end to attacks on vital infrastructure in both Iran and Israel, and the stopping of massacres of civilians in both countries," said the activists in an op-ed in French newspaper Le Monde. The signatories included Nobel peace prize winners Shirin Ebadi and Narges Mohammadi, as well as the winner of the top prize at the 2025 Cannes Film Festival, Jafar Panahi, and his fellow director Mohammad Rassoulof. Iran's enrichment of uranium has for decades been a cause of tension with the West and Israel, which fear the drive is aimed at making an atomic bomb, a charge denied by Tehran. "We believe that continuing uranium enrichment and the devastating war between the Islamic Republic and the Israeli regime neither serves the Iranian people nor humanity at large," said the signatories who also included the rights activists Sedigheh Vasmaghi, Shahnaz Akmali and Abdolfattah Soltani. "Uranium enrichment is in no way in the interest of the Iranian people. They must not be sacrificed for the nuclear or geopolitical ambitions of an authoritarian regime," they said. Calling on the Iranian leadership under Ayatollah Ali Khamenei to step down, they said: "The current leaders of the Islamic Republic lack the capacity to resolve Iran's domestic crises or its external tensions." "The only credible path to preserve this country and its people is for current authorities to step down." Panahi returned to Iran last month after winning the Palme d'Or for his latest movie, "It Was Just an Accident", but has been presenting his work this month at a film festival in Australia. Rassoulof, whose latest film was shown at the 2024 festival, now lives in exile after escaping clandestinely that year. Ebadi, who won the 2023 Nobel peace prize, also now lives abroad. Mohammadi, the 2023 laureate, remains in Iran and his currently on leave for health reasons from a prison term. © 2025 AFP
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
Khamenei, Iran's political survivor, faces ultimate test
Khamenei, Iran's top leader since the death of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, has ruled in the face of sanctions, near constant international tensions as well as protests that were ruthlessly repressed, most recently the 2022-2023 women-led uprising. With Khamenei aged 86, the issue of succession was already looming large in Iran. But his moves now will have a decisive impact on the future on the system of which he has been a pillar since the 1979 Islamic Revolution that ousted the shah. Meanwhile, his own physical survival could be at stake, with a senior American official saying Donald Trump rejected an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei but Israel is still not ruling out such a move. "Khamenei is at the twilight of his rule, at the age 86, and already much of the daily command of the regime is not up to him but to various factions who are vying for the future," said Arash Azizi, senior fellow at Boston University. "This process was already underway and the current war only accelerates it," he told AFP. 'Self-inflicted dilemma' Israel's success in killing key Iranian figures, including the army chief and head of the Revolutionary Guards, has illustrated how Israeli intelligence can track Iranian leaders and raised the question of whether Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could give an order to seek to kill Khamenei himself. The movements of the supreme leader, who has not left Iran since taking up the position and made his last foreign visit to North Korea in 1989 while still president, are subject to the tightest security and secrecy. "It is possible that they might have a regime change plan of their own, either by supporting or semi-supporting a coup inside the regime or by continuing to kill at the highest level hoping that this leads to a fundamental shift in posture toward Israel or something of a regime change," said Azizi. Karim Sadjadpour, senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said Khamenei faced a "self-inflicted dilemma" and already lacked the "physical and cognitive acumen to lead Iran into a high-tech war". "A weak response to Israel further diminishes his authority, a strong response could further jeopardise his survival, and that of his regime," he said. 'Prided himself' While keeping up the rhetoric of confrontation with the US and Israel and backing proxies like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Khamenei long kept Iran out of direct conflict with its foes. But the current strikes appear to represent a sudden end to this strategy. "He has prided himself on deterring conflict away from Iran's borders since he assumed the supreme leadership in 1989," said Jason Brodsky, policy director of US-based United Against Nuclear Iran. "So Khamenei has badly miscalculated." Brodsky said the nearest comparison to the current situation were the attacks against leaders blamed on the opposition in the early 1980s which saw the then president killed and Khamenei himself wounded in a 1981 assassination attempt. "It will be an experience that Khamenei will undoubtedly draw upon in the current context," Brodsky told AFP. "But what we are witnessing today is on a completely different level of magnitude. And it's occurring at a pace that threatens to overwhelm the capacity of Tehran." The scale of Israel's first attacks overnight Thursday to Friday, ahead of what were supposed to be a new round of talks in Oman on the Iranian nuclear programme, took the leadership by surprise at a time when it has been on the lookout for any further protests amid economic hardship. "Indeed, the strikes have intensified already simmering tensions, and many Iranians want to see the Islamic republic gone. Crucially, however, most of them do not want this outcome to come at the cost of bloodshed and war," said Holly Dagres, senior fellow at The Washington Institute. 'Stay strong' In an interview with Fox News, Netanyahu suggested that "regime change" could be the outcome of the Israeli strikes, while insisting that it would be for the Iranian people to bring this about. "It could certainly be the result as the Iran regime is very weak," he said, claiming that "80 percent of the people would throw these theological thugs out". Asked if there was an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei that had been vetoed by Washington, Netanyahu replied: "We do what we need to do, we will do what we need to do and I think the United States knows what is good for the United States". The Iranian opposition, both in exile and inside the country, remains riven by division. One of its most prominent representatives Reza Pahlavi, the son of the last shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi and who has warm relations with Israel, has told Iranians: "Stay strong and we will win." So far, however, there have been no reports of mass protests, although some Persian-language television channels based abroad have broadcast images of groups shouting anti-Khamenei slogans.
France 24
2 hours ago
- France 24
France shuts Israeli weapons booths at Paris Air Show
The decision added drama to the major aerospace industry event, which was already being held under the shadow of last week's deadly crash of Air India's Boeing 787 Dreamliner. Black walls were installed around the stands of five Israeli defence firms at the trade fair in Le Bourget, an airfield on the outskirts of Paris. The booths displayed "offensive weapons" that could be used in Gaza -- in violation of agreements with Israeli authorities, a French government source told AFP. The companies -- Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Rafael Uvision, Elbit and Aeronautics -- make drones and guided bombs and missiles. An Israeli exhibitor wrote a message in yellow chalk on one of the walls, saying the hidden defence systems "are protecting the state of Israel these days. The French government, in the name of discrimination is trying to hide them from you!" Israeli President Isaac Herzog said he was shocked by the "outrageous" closure of the pavilions and said the situation should be "immediately corrected". "Israeli companies have signed contracts with the organisers... it's like creating an Israeli ghetto," he said on French television channel LCI. The Israeli defence ministry said in a statement that the "outrageous and unprecedented decision reeks of policy-driven and commercial considerations". "The French are hiding behind supposedly political considerations to exclude Israeli offensive weapons from an international exhibition -- weapons that compete with French industries," it said. "This is particularly striking given Israeli technologies' impressive and precise performance in Iran." Israel launched surprise strikes on Iranian military and nuclear sites on Friday, killing top commanders and scientists, prompting Tehran to hit back with a barrage of missiles. The presence of Israeli firms at Le Bourget, though smaller than in the past, was already a source of tension before the start of the Paris Air Show, because of the conflict in Gaza. A French court last week rejected a bid by NGOs to ban Israeli companies from Le Bourget over concerns about "international crimes". Local lawmakers from the Seine-Saint-Denis department hosting the event were absent during French Prime Minister Francois Bayrou's visit to the opening of the air show in protest over the Israeli presence. "Never has the world been so disrupted and destabilised," Bayrou said at a roundtable event, urging nations to tackle challenges "together, not against each other". Boeing 'focus on supporting customers' The row over Israel cast a shadow over a trade fair that is usually dominated by displays of the aerospace industry's latest flying wonders, and big orders for plane makers Airbus and Boeing. Airbus announced an order of 30 single-aisle A320neo jets and 10 A350F freighters by Saudi aircraft leasing firm AviLease. The European manufacturer also said Riyadh Air was buying 25 long-range, wide-body A350-1000 jets. But Boeing chief executive Kelly Ortberg last week cancelled plans to attend the biennial event, to focus on the investigation of the Air India crash. "Our focus is on supporting our customers, rather than announcing orders at this air show," a Boeing spokeswoman told AFP on Monday. The London-bound Dreamliner crashed shortly after take off in the western Indian city of Ahmedabad, killing 241 passengers and crew and another 38 on the ground. One passenger survived.
