2023-12-22 16:46:24
This is the promise that would have been made to her so that she would remain in government. While Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Higher Education, had presented her resignation to Emmanuel Macron due to a “deep disagreement” on the measures concerning students in the immigration law, the Elysée and Matignon would have promised him that these provisions in particular “would be revised if they were not censored by the Constitutional Council”.
One measure in particular had difficulty being accepted by the minister: the “return deposit” for foreign students, introduced by the right during the CMP. Emmanuel Macron himself called it “not a good idea”, saying that France “needs to continue to attract talent and students from around the world”. Even Bruno Le Maire and Edouard Philippe, two tenors of the right of the majority, showed their reservations, the first conceding that it “was not the most essential” of the measures, the second confident that he “would not beaten on it.”
A merit exemption
We still need to understand exactly what this “return deposit” would correspond to, ultimately not very explained in the bill. According to the terms of the final text adopted by Parliament, “the first issue of a temporary residence card bearing the student notation is subject to the foreigner submitting a deposit”. This is “returned to the foreigner when he leaves France at the expiration of the residence permit, in the event of renewal of this residence permit or in the event of obtaining another residence permit with a change of pattern”. To understand: a foreign student wishing to study in France must pay a certain amount into a blocked account, in order to ensure that they can afford to return to their country when their visa expires.
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Some additional conditions are also specified. A student subject to an OQTF (Obligation to leave French territory) will not have their deposit returned. On the contrary, the text provides that “exceptionally”, the ministry may exempt certain students from the deposit “when the low income and the excellence of the school or university career justify it”.
A comparison to Germany
But it is above all the amount of this “return deposit”, the great unknown for the moment, which will determine the importance that this measure will take. On the France Inter set, Elisabeth Borne mentioned a sum of “10 euros, 20 euros”, therefore relatively derisory, specifying that the amount would be “referred to a regulatory text” and that the measure could be “reviewed”, already invalidating its future application.
To explain this “return deposit”, the Prime Minister also took the example of Germany, explaining that across the Rhine, “to be able to study, you must deposit 11,000 euros in a blocked account”. Different regulations, however. Because among our German neighbors, this sum can then be gradually returned to the student during their year, in increments of 947 euros per month.
READ ALSO: Emmanuel Macron and the immigration law: behind the scenes of a capitulation
This German provision also already exists in part in France. Currently, a foreign student from outside the EU wishing to come and study must prove to the French authorities that they have at least 615 euros per month, or a little more than 7,300 euros, apart from a few exceptions. If this sum is not then blocked as the “return deposit” would put in place, it seems to correspond more to the German example chosen by the Prime Minister.
The revolt of higher education
This measure will have succeeded in turning around almost the entirety of higher education. France Universités, the organization which brings together presidents and directors of public universities and Grandes Écoles, denounced in a press release a measure of “discrimination by money”, recalling in particular that “international students constitute 40% of doctoral students” in France and calling for this provision to “disappear”.
In a column at Le Parisien, the leaders of HEC, Essec and ESCP, the top three French business schools according to the rankings of L’Express and L’Etudiant, also criticized the establishment of this “return deposit”, “a mechanism economically and legally aberrant. According to them, this measure “goes against the principles of republican equality and international student mobility” and “will reduce the proportion of international students in our schools and universities”. The “return deposit” should in fact not go in the direction of France’s objective of attracting 500,000 foreign students by 2027, while they are estimated at just over 400,000 today. .
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Above all, fear is growing in higher education. For the bosses of HEC, Essec and ESCP, “the vagueness around the amount of this deposit, which would not be determined by law, opens the door to arbitrary and clearly dissuasive variations”. Indeed, as Elisabeth Borne recalled, if this “return deposit” were to survive the ax of the Constitutional Council, its amount would be chosen by decree. In other words, modifiable by the executive.
If the current government decided to maintain this amount at 10 or 20 euros, nothing says that a future executive could not decide to set a much higher amount. Enough to move from anecdotal provision to real public policy.
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