In an unprecedented revolt, thousands of scientists took to the streets across France last week, and half the country’s lab directors threatened to resign.
They were protesting at the abolition of 550 junior research posts, and the government’s continuing failure to release a quarter of the research budgets for 2002 and 2003, even though the 2003 budget had been cut by 23 per cent. “They thought we would say nothing,” says Alain Trautmann, an immunologist at the Cochin Institute in Paris and one of the leaders of the protest. If the government has not surrendered in a few weeks, he…
