For years now, researchers and academics have denounced the decline of the French scientific system and the drastic fall in the number of full time research positions in France. The current administration has responded with a law that in theory aims to render the system more dynamic, but which many accuse of fostering labour precarization.

 

Based on data from L’état de l’emploi scientifique en France (2020), Fig. 1 shows that the French scientific system is certainly not stagnated, but that its growth comes primarily from enterprises, while full research positions in the public administration and nonprofit organizations grow at a significantly lesser rhythm. Fig. 2 shows that the same goes for other employees working in research, such as technical assistants. All in all, as seen in Fig. 3, research-related positions in administration have gone from about half to about a third of all research positions from 2000 to 2018.