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| Valérie Pécresse |
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| Tuesday, 09 October 2007 | |
Minister of Higher Education and Research. Born in Neuilly, Valérie Pécresse is married to an engineer, with whom she has two sons of 11 and 10 and a four-year-old daughter. At just 40, she is the youngest minister in the government. Like Dati at Justice, she has to confront berobed old gentlemen suspicious of ‘youngsters’, especially female ones. Nonetheless, her CV is impressive: diploma from HEC in 1998 and then ÉNA, where she finished second in her class. In 1998, she joined the presidential staff and, in 2002, became assistant secretary of the UMP and their official spokesperson in 2004. She was elected député for the Yvelines in 2002, and believes firmly in the necessity for administrators to go through the whole electoral process and to keep in close touch with their constituents; she has worked very hard at this and was rewarded by being reelected in the first round of this year’s elections. She is also a conseillère régionale for Île-de-France. Pécresse’s first priority has been to get the new university programme properly launched. Its main aim is to give the universities and their heads greater autonomy. They will still not be allowed to select their students, but may warn the less promising ones that they would do better elsewhere. Institutions will at least have greater control over their funds, staff and courses. In July, she started working on her project for ‘young researchers’. The appointment of a Minister of Higher Education and Research alongside Minister of Education Darcos shows that Sarkozy is convinced that improvements here are vital for France’s competitiveness in the modern world. For the universities, the main problem is being submerged by a flood of unsuitable students: more than 80% of candidates get their bac and all are guaranteed places at university. “Selection by failure” is how the head of the Sorbonne described the situation, where only 27% of students survive their first year. The other 73% have wasted a year in the overcrowded lecture halls. For pure research, the problem is mainly shortage of funds, which prevents universities and labs from offering stable positions to the many PhDs coming on to the labour market every year. Being a successful mother of three gives her undeniable authority not shared by all her cabinet colleagues. Her early political work was largely concerned with women’s rights and problems, but has expanded into much wider fields over the years. Her recent autobiography is called ‘Être une femme politique... c’est pas si facile’. |
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