With the presidential scientific council, Emmanuel Macron wishes to have a “permanent” council which could advise him and advise him on scientific issues. He presented his ambition on Thursday December 7.
Thursday, December 7, Emmanuel Macron launched the “presidential science council”, which “is not intended to have the role that the scientific council played during the Covid-19 epidemic”, assured the president, according to remarks reported by The world. The committee of this council will be made up of around ten researchers. This council will be different from the scientific council since its decisions will not be made public and will be communicated to the President of the Republic. Its model is the “President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology”, which advises the President of the United States on science and technology, and the “Council for Science and Technology”, which advises the Prime Minister in the United Kingdom. , precise TF1.
At the highest level, this council aims to help the president “in guiding, alerting and monitoring decisions taken”, indicates Le Monde. It must enlighten him on different scientific subjects and on future issues. It must also give visibility to research. “The objective of this Council is to help bring together scientists and politicians,” said Claire Mathieu, one of the members of the presidential science council, in an interview with Figaro.
Among the members of this scientific presidential council are two Nobel Prize winners, Alain Aspect (physics, 2022), Alain Tirole (economics, 2014), but also the mathematician Hugo Duminil-Copin, Fields Medal 2022, Aude Bernheim, researcher in microbiology at Inserm, oncologist Fabrice André, director of research at the Gustave-Roussy Institute, or even ecologist Sandra Lavorel, 2023 CNRS gold medal. According to Le Figaro, Claire Mathieu, researcher in computer science and mathematics, Pierre-Paul Zalio, president of the Condorcet Campus, Lucien Bely historian and member of the Institut de France and the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences, Pascale Senellart physicist and the philosopher Claudine Tiercelin are also members of this presidential science council. The council will not have a president and the Élysée wants its format to be “effective, so that the president has live opinions and feedback from researchers for certain scientific priorities”, specifies The world.
For José-Alain Sahel, ophthalmologist, member of the presidential science council, this body will allow researchers to express themselves. “We can’t just be saying ‘it doesn’t work’ and when we ask for your opinion, not give it,” he says to franceinfo. However, he does not yet comment on the usefulness of the advice. “We will probably know much later,” he says cautiously.