📅 21 Apr 2025
🏷️
blogging
Disclaimer: This entry has been in my drafts for so long I think it’s time to get it out. Every aspects of the story below might not be 100% correct. My point is mainly to focus on names and how they are used to convey (a false sense of) prestige.
Thanks to many gap years, I’ve been a student for way too long. During that time, my university changed its name at least 3 times. It’s even not a university any more even though it is named Université Paris Cité. Does that sound crazy? It most certainly does but understanding this story will lead us into the depths of higher education’s politics in France!
After the protests of May 1968, the one and only université de Paris was dismantled into 13 smaller universities. They were numbered from 1 to 13, but they were also given less abrupt names. When I went to college for my first year of medical school, I was a student in université Paris Diderot aka Paris-VII (yes we used roman numbering because we are fancy people).
It was a pretty big university: 25 000 students. In medical school, after the competitive exam, there were roughly 350 of us in each cohort (and roughly 2000 students in the first year, before the competitive exam).
At some point, it was decided that universities should collaborate more (or that they should be bigger to be more visible for foreigners). To do so, they should form super-structures to formalize and incentivize collaborations. And so was born Université Sorbonne Paris Cité! It gathered several universities such as université Paris Diderot (Paris-VII), université Paris Descartes (Paris-V), université Sorbonne Nouvelle (Paris-III), université Paris-XIII (which would be known as université Sorbonne Paris Nord later), but also other higher education institutions such as Institut de physique du globe de Paris or the Institut d’études politiques de Paris (better known as Science Po Paris or simply Science Po).
If you are completely lost, grab your seat belt because we are just getting started!
What you need to understand is that Université Sorbonne Paris Cité was not a university (as its name cleary indicates). At first it was a PRES which stands for Pôles de Recherche et d’Enseignement Supérieur (research and higher education pole). But then it became a ComUE which stands for Communautés d’Universités et Etablissements (community of universities and other institutions). What is the difference? Well, the ComUE is supposed to strengthen the relationships between its members. Unlike the PRES, it can deliver diplomas and there are also differences budget-wise. To most, this is just bureaucratic talk.
Université Sorbonne Paris Cité was able to deliver diplomas because it was a établissement public à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel (scientific, cultural and professional public institution). This category gathers universities, grandes écoles, and institutions such as Université Sorbonne Paris Cité (namely ComUE). Hence, despite its name, Université Sorbonne Paris Cité is not a university.
But what is a university in France then? The difference lies within the way it is governed (how many students are on the board?) and structured (how deep can be the hierarchies of sub-structures within the university?). It might seem unsignificant at first glance, but trust me it is a huge deal to some people when big corporations are better represented in the board than students.
Let get back to the story at hand: most students almost never heard of Université Sorbonne Paris Cité. It was a super-structure you may see the logo at some places, but not much more for them. If you asked one of them, they would say that they were students from université Paris Diderot for instance.
So the PRES/ComUE thing was good, but not good enough. Now universities needed to merge if they wanted to secure grant money. This is where it gets even more political: not all member of Université Sorbonne Paris Cité were happy with each other. In the end, only université Paris Diderot (Paris-VII), université Paris Descartes (Paris-V) and Institut de physique du globe de Paris merged to form Université de Paris (not to be confused with université de Paris we talked about in the first section). Again, this is not a university but another établissement public à caractère scientifique, culturel et professionnel, as is obvious to anyone who knows how to read.
If you managed to keep up until there, you may have noticed that the new
Université de Paris have almost the same name as université de Paris we talked
about in the beginning. You’re not the only one. Another university (a real
one this time) complained and so Université de Paris had to change its name. It
became Université Paris Cité (so that they did not to change to many things
regarding merch or email address. Indeed the domain name is still u-paris.fr).
Technically then, Université Paris Cité is still not a university and cannot brand itself as one. Hence, you are not supposed to say “j’étudie à l’université Paris Cité” but “j’étudie à Université Paris Cité”: you should use it as a brand name (which almost no one does).
When the universities merged, they had to figure out what to do with departments that were represented in both universities. For some of them, it was obvious that they had to merge: there should be only one library network in Université Paris Cité. For other it was less clear: should there be only one medical school? On the one hand it would be easier to mutualize resources (be it teachers, admins, or internship opportunities). On the other hand, the merged cohorts would foster almost a thousand students!
For a while, there was a status quo: there were two medical schools in Université Paris Cité. But in the end, the merging process resumed to result in the biggest medical school in Europe. However, as you may have guessed, things were not that easy: on the paper, there was only one medical school, but in fact it was entertaining two separated cohorts of students. In other words, for students, the merge did not happen until a few years after.
So for a while, I was a student at Université Paris Cité in the UFR de médecine Paris Nord ex-Paris-VII (and some of my fellow classmates whom I never met were student at Université Paris Cité at UFR de médecine Paris Centre ex-Paris-V).
But at some point, the madness had to stop and the cohorts merged !
All in all, I’m a student at Université Paris Cité at UFR de médecine.
PS: Oh. By the way. Did I fail to mention that all of my classes are organized and held at Sorbonne Université (which is a real one this time, officially called université Sorbonne Université)?
PPS: As hinted in the disclaimer, all of this is mainly a joke/rant on the names chosen and used. That does not say much about the bigger motivations and plans for higher education presupposed…