” I am Russian. » Every time Daria Kriazhova utters these three words, she feels a “deep malaise”. At 28, the doctoral student in literature at Sorbonne University is French-speaking and Francophile. Arriving in France in 2019, she continued her university career there. But, since February 24, 2022, the date of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, his nationality weighs on him. Like many Russian students in France. “It’s something shameful to wear”, she confides.
In 2022, there were 5,400 Russian students to pursue studies in France, according to the count by Campus France, the national agency responsible for promoting French higher education abroad. Many of them preferred to stay rather than return to a country at war. And the Russian conscription did not stop the flow of these young people. They were 1,500 to come to France the year before the conflict, they were still 1,200 in 2022, according to a government source.
Anastasia Mishina, 24, a second-year student in a master’s degree in publishing at Sorbonne University, is one of those who chose not to leave. Arrived in 2021 to follow a double master’s degree offered by the Sorbonne and the University of Saint Petersburg, she attended, from Paris, her country’s entry into the war. She was quickly affected by the battery of Western sanctions against her country. The collaboration between the two universities is officially stopped, even if its professors maintain courses to accompany their students until the defense, then the diploma. His bank, BNP, refuses to transfer him the money that his mother, who remained in Russia, is ready to send to him when his Erasmus Plus scholarship is coming to an end. Without resources, she goes to the distribution of Restos du Coeur and combines odd jobs to survive.
“Anxiety to lose their visa”
For banks, the Russian passport has become a red rag. Marie Zanga, 21, a student at the School of Industrial Biology, an engineering school in Cergy (Val-d’Oise), experienced this when she was looking for a loan to finance his studies. Daughter of a Cameroonian father and a Yakut mother (a people from Siberia), born in Saint Petersburg, she has a Russian passport. “When I arrive at a bank and present my study project, everything goes well. I always specify that I am not French, the answer is invariable: foreign students also have the right to obtain a loan. » It is when the young woman takes out her passport that the situation becomes tense. “Ha! You are Russian ! », we are surprised. His demands invariably end in dismissal. “However, I am not an oligarch”, s’agace Marie.
You have 46.59% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.