In 2023, a new Sciences Po in Fontainebleau

This is one of the surprises of the summer: a discreet ministerial decreepublished on 1^er August and signed by Sylvie Retailleau, Minister of Higher Education, announces the creation, within the University Paris-Est Créteil Val-de-Marne (UPEC), of an Institute of Political Studies (IEP). A new Sciences Po was born, the eleventh since the creation of the Free School of Political Sciences, in Paris, in 1871. This institute will grow on the basis of the International School of Political Studies, a training and research unit created in 2019 by UPEC, and whose premises are located in Fontainebleau (Seine-et-Marne).

If the existence of the new institute will be official as of Thursday 1^er September 2022, the first intake is scheduled for September 2023, with a small cohort of seventy-five first-year students.

The creation of this new IEP, which is added to the ten existing ones (Paris, Strasbourg, Aix-en-Provence, Lille, Lyon, Rennes, Toulouse, Saint-Germain-en-Laye as well as Bordeaux and Grenoble) is a response to the enthusiasm of young people for these interdisciplinary courses, which have become very selective and cause great disappointment among those who have failed. In 2022, more than 10,000 young people entered the joint competition set up by a network of seven Sciences Po, for only 1,140 places. Seven years earlier, in 2015, there were 8,868 high school students trying to join one of the institutes. The attractiveness of the sector increases every year. “We are not a competitor for the other IEPs given the number of applications and the few places”underlines Yves Palau, director of Sciences Po Fontainebleau.

Polemic opening

However, the creation of this new IEP is not unanimous. In May 2022, the National Council for Higher Education and Research (Cneser), an advisory body, issued an unfavorable opinion on the project to create “Sciences Po Fontainebleau”. The ministry ignored it.

“We are going to undress Pierre to dress Paul. Teacher-researchers and administrative staff from UPEC will be directed to the IEP, to the detriment of the university” – Pierre Chantelot, representative of Snesup-Fsu

Pierre Chantelot, representative of Snesup-Fsu, voted against this creation. The union denounces the fact that the training will pay off for the majority of its students and fears a form of “privatization” of the University. In addition, the teacher questions the lack of human resources announced to create the establishment: “We are going to undress Pierre to dress Paul. Teacher-researchers and administrative staff from UPEC will be directed to the IEP, to the detriment of the university. While there is already a UFR of political science at UPEC, we are creating an establishment that will ride on the prestige of the IEP name to be more selective, with another economic model to take it out of the public university and open to all. » The question of registration fees for this new institute has also cooled the Fage student union..

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