A call for “vigilance from our fellow citizens and our elected representatives regarding respect for the values and principles that science upholds”. As the second round of legislative elections approaches on Sunday 7 July, the Academy of Sciences has made a point of clearly distancing itself from the party of Marine Le Pen and Jordan Bardella, in a press release published this Wednesday, July 3.
“Next Sunday, the French are called to a critical choice at a time when the National Rally and its allies could come to power,” warns the Academy of Sciences.
The latter considers that it is “crucial to recall that withdrawal into oneself cannot provide a solution” and this “while knowledge can only progress in an open world without scientific borders”. This “withdrawal into oneself” “could only be detrimental to the development of knowledge, to education, to health, to culture, to the influence of France and to the competitiveness of its economy, in short to our common well-being, and it would lead to the isolation and weakening of our country”, judges the assembly of scientists.
“Free movement of scientists and ideas”
The Academy of Sciences also highlights “the total lack of credibility of the National Rally’s programmatic declarations on scientific and technological subjects that are crucial for the future of France” and “therefore calls on all citizens to take these elements into account when voting on July 7” in the second round of the election.
On June 18, in a rare communication devoted to public debate, the Academy of Sciences had already warned against the choice of “withdrawal into oneself, advocated by some” which “would seriously harm research” and the scientific influence of France. As the legislative elections approached, the assembly of scientists “called” in a press release “for vigilance regarding the respect of essential values in democracy” such as “those carried by science”. It stressed the need for “free movement of scientists and ideas” which “implies guaranteeing free movement of students, researchers and academics, without administrative hassle, regardless of their country of origin”.
A few days earlier, the association of school directors France-University also expressed her fears, in similar terms. And some 800 scientific figures and heads of major bodies (CNRS, INSERM, Pasteur Institute, etc.) called on June 23 not to let “no obscurantism invades us“, in a tribune in the world.