France kicks off a new influence strategy in higher education and research

“Putting our cultural and influencing diplomacy at the heart of our external action of our country”: this was the Le Drian’s mantra, who developed several paths towards a new impulse.

The battle of influence

According to the minister, diplomacy of influence, as France practices worldwide, is now “a contested space, where some global powers seem to use any spending or action to try to penetrate the positions we claim and limit our capacity to value the French and European offer”. According to Le Drian, behind this “battle of influence there is a battle of models opposing visions of the world and visions of mankind”.

Driving forces, strategic priorities and method

It is in this context that the Minister has set out his main lines of work, “ten driving forces which are as many principles for modernising and consolidating the French offer". These include targeting young audiences, to bring out new generations of Francophiles, and defending the “French model in a more assertive and even more offensive way”.

Such driving forces materialise in strategic priorities:

• on the one hand, to set up “excellent French teaching to serve multilingualism and young people”, with the doubling of the number of French schools abroad by 2030, new digital support systems for language schools abroad and the creation of new alliances françaises;
• It is also about attracting “talent to our universities and supporting the international projection of higher education and research institutions”.

Higher education and research as tools of influence

Three points complement this aspect of the influence strategy. How to attract these talents? And Le Drian replied:

• by “improving the intake conditions for foreign students as part of the “Bienvenue en France” (Welcome to France) plan released in November 2018”, with a new intake plan for these students in the light of the current health crisis, and also by trying to attract more Asian students (Asian countries, and specifically China and India, are today the driving forces of international mobility of students);
• by developing “Franco-foreign campuses, including in the IndoPacific region, and by multiplying the joint degrees processes between universities and major French schools and foreign universities”;
• by relying on “the alliances of European universities to develop university cooperation all over the world”.

A range of mechanisms

In addition to these three central points, many additional actions are considered (and detailed in the press release) to improve the influence strategy of French higher education and research. A whole “range of mechanisms allowing to support young people in their projects” is applied as such:

• strengthening of scholarship programmes of the French government for international students and expansion of innovative schemes (the Ministry of Foreign Affairs allocates again 64 million Euros per annum after a decrease registered in 2021 because of the health crisis, as part of the Finance Law 2022 Project);
• amplification  of the Passeports talent mechanism so that young people can work in France in a professional activity or in the design of a project;
• Spreading of the France Alumni platform so it can be accessed by all international students in France by the end of 2022;
• creation of a platform for alumni of French schools and high schools abroad in interoperability with the France Alumni platform;
• organisation of an annual Alumni Day in Paris for all partners and relays of France’s influence.

A French influence team

Le Drian also explained that the roadmap is also a method. To strengthen the effectiveness of the French system, said Le Drian, “we must continue to promote synergies between operators” and form “a true Team France of influence”. And in the field of student mobility, the Minister concludes on this point, we can “raise the question of bringing Campus France and the Erasmus Agency together to deal with inward and outward mobility, as our German and Dutch partners do, for example”.