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Faced with the expected arrival of academics from the United States fleeing Donald Trump’s ‘dictatorship,’ the French Left has suddenly become hostile to immigration and is advocating ‘national preference’ for French researchers.

The French National Assembly will now be discussing a bill aimed at creating a ‘scientific refugee’ status to facilitate the reception and hiring of American academics who want to leave their institutions in the United States to settle in France. Some U.S. academics are supposedly pursuing European options in order to escape alleged censorship of their work by Donald Trump’s government—what is in reality only a reduction in public funding for research deemed secondary or overly ideologically militant.

Once the enthusiasm of the small French academic world, which loudly proclaimed its willingness to welcome these new ‘political exiles’ with open arms, had died down, mistrust of the new arrivals quickly set in: these researchers will obviously be cutting into the already very tight budgets of their French colleagues. Are they really so welcome?

Economist Thomas Porcher has serious doubts and expressed his fears and reservations on the public radio station France Inter. We predicted this in a previous article: the generosity of unionised French researchers lasts only as long as it doesn’t cost them anything and does not encroach on their own interests. Porcher argued, with a certain common sense, that the rave reception given to American professors is a form of “contempt for those who keep universities running.” Why, he added, recruit foreign researchers “when we are struggling to retain the best French researchers?” Why roll out the red carpet for these academics from elsewhere when the brightest French minds are seeking refuge in foreign universities because they are not appreciated, paid, or valued at their true worth? His conclusion is clear: “We should focus on these teachers first, rather than welcoming foreign teachers.”

One can only applaud this observation. This is simply called ‘national preference’—a concept defended by the Front National, and then by the Rassemblement National under the name ‘national priority’ for several decades. Why favour foreign nationals when French people are struggling to find jobs? Shouldn’t priority be given to nationals? This is the policy applied in Switzerland, for example: for any job vacancy, an employer who is preparing to hire a foreigner must prove that no Swiss national is available to fill the position. Simple and effective.

Porcher’s statement would be welcome if it did not come from a man known for his ardent political defence of unconditional immigration. This was, of course, as long as his own sector and his own job were not at risk, which is no longer the case today: as a teacher at the Paris School of Business, he now fears competition from colleagues from the United States who are very keen to take up positions in France. A position—or his position?

In 2019, Porcher passionately defended open borders on television, as our colleagues at Boulevard Voltaire remind us. He mocked the French people’s concerns about the constant rise in immigration: “For the French, immigrants are going to steal French jobs, which is not true!” he exclaimed with a perfect blend of self-righteousness and bad faith. At the time, he was thinking of street cleaners and delivery drivers—not researchers—with the same contempt he now condemns in those who looking to hire American academics rather than French ones. In 2024, he attacked the RN’s programme, which he deemed “xenophobic” on the grounds that it defended “national priority”—the very same priority that, less than a year later, he is demanding for himself and his colleagues.

In this affair, hypocrisy is rife at all levels. On May 18th, 2024, President Emmanuel Macron called on researchers to “choose France” (in English in the text). “Here in France, research is a priority, innovation is a culture, science is a limitless horizon,” he declared lyrically. On April 19th, 2025, French Research Minister Philippe Baptiste confidently asserted that France could welcome “hundreds” of American researchers, accompanied by their teams—at an estimated cost of one million euros per researcher for three years.

French researchers who desperately scan official websites in the hope of a meagre, underpaid six-month contract and are eyeing the very American universities shunned by the spoiled children of wokism know the truth. No doubt they appreciated just how little regard was shown in France for their intelligence—or their future. Now, for these brilliant minds, all that remains is to slip the right ballot into the box next time to demand national priority—for all.

Original article: europeanconservative.com