With the far right poised to become the biggest political force in France after this Sunday’s elections, scientists have raised the alarm about what they see as a “grave threat” to their country.
Researchers say a far-right government led by the populist National Rally would make it harder to hire or retain foreign scientists, to fund and carry out certain kinds of research, or to make policy decisions rooted in sound evidence. In recent weeks, thousands of French scientists have signed open letters urging the public to vote against the party.
“We’re extremely worried,” says oceanologist Joachim Claudet of CNRS, the French national research agency. “Far-right ideas are not compatible with the practice of science that is open to the world, open to others, and curious about what we don’t know.”
This weekend’s vote marks the second and final round of the elections for France’s National Assembly, the lower, more powerful house of Parliament. In the first round, held last Sunday, the populist, far-right National Rally and its allies scored 33% of votes, ahead of a freshly minted leftist union called the New Popular Front (28%) and President Emmanuel Macron’s diminished centrist group (just under 22%). Only 76 parliamentarians were elected outright in the first round; the remaining 501 seats will be decided in Sunday’s runoff.
Macron called the snap election following a bruising defeat in the European elections last month, in which the National Rally won 31% of votes. Since then, many scientists have spoken out against the party. “A victory of the National Rally […] would represent a grave and immediate threat for research and higher education,” said an open letter in the newspaper Le Monde on 25 June, co-authored and signed by Claudet as well as Nobel laureates Alain Aspect, Serge Haroche, and hundreds of other scientists.
The party’s anti-immigration stance is first on the list of researchers’ worries. Foreign scientists are “vital to the diversity, richness, and vigor of our research,” argues the letter, noting that about 40% of doctoral students and 20% of researchers in France come from other countries. “Obtaining visas is already complicated” for foreign students and scientists, explains Catherine Pélachaud, a CNRS researcher in artificial intelligence at the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics of Sorbonne University. Her colleagues hail from countries including Algeria, China, Japan, and Russia, and more restrictive policies could directly affect their research, she says. “We’re all frightened.”
Even some French citizens could face restrictions under a National Rally government. Jordan Bardella, the party’s 28-year-old president who could become prime minister, made headlines on 24 June by stating that French nationals who hold another citizenship should be barred from select “strategic” state jobs. “How can we attract and retain the best scientists in a country that has elected as its leader a party whose implicit promise is to unleash xenophobia?” a 3 July editorial on research policy news website The MetaNews asked.
The National Rally’s manifesto doesn’t mention research policy, but observers note that many far-right politicians are distrustful and dismissive of science. The lack of clarity makes some scientists wary. “We don’t know if [a National Rally government] would earmark research money for nauseating ideologies,” says Mathieu Groussin, a French computational microbiologist at the University of Kiel. “This could be frightening.” In an interview with The MetaNews, current science minister and physicist Sylvie Retailleau said the National Rally’s “attacks” tend to focus on areas of biomedical research and on social and environmental sciences.
Although the party disputes claims of climate skepticism, it tends to downplay reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change as too alarmist and consistently opposes environmental measures, notes a 25 June letter published by the activist group Scientists in Rebellion and signed by almost 4000 scientists.
Scientific organizations have also expressed concern. On 1 July, the researchers’ union SNCS-FSU reiterated its calls to vote against the National Rally. The French Academy of Sciences and France Universités have issued statements defending values of freedom and openness.
But some worry such calls could backfire. “Scientists and researchers know perfectly well” that a National Rally government would be damaging, says a deputy vice president at one French university who requested anonymity. Writing open letters can help to unite the scientific community but could also be counterproductive. “At best they are read by other scientists, so they have no impact,” the university official says. “At worst, they irritate voters who are attracted by the National Rally and see [in these statements] the contempt of ‘intellectuals’ toward less educated people.”
After the election, Macron must nominate a prime minister from the majority party, who then gets to form a government. The situation where the president and prime minister come from different political sides, known as “cohabitation,” has occurred three times since the 1980s. Under this scenario, Macron would lose much of his power, except in the areas of defense and foreign affairs.
Politicians across party lines have tried to prevent the National Rally from getting an absolute majority. More than 200 candidates dropped from three- or four-way runoff races in their constituencies to clear the way for another candidate who could beat the National Rally. As a result, some recent polls suggest the party may not win an absolute majority. But with a shriveled Macronist center squeezed between the left alliance and a beefed-up far right, France could become ungovernable.
Although the stakes are high, Sunday’s vote is far from the end of the road, says Clélia Sirami, an ecology researcher who did not want her employer to be named. She is concerned about what might unfold in other countries where the far right is rising or already in power, and about France’s 2027 presidential elections. “There is little margin left to influence Sunday’s vote. It’s the long term that scares me,” she says.
