French research directors, angered by what they see as a government death wish for science, are planning to resign en masse early in March if politicians do not meet their demands for the future of French research.

Under the banner of a movement called “Sauvons la recherche” (“Let's save research”), over half the lab directors employed by the government's two largest biomedical research bodies, the National Center for Scientific Research and the Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), have declared they are prepared to resign their administrative responsibilities on March 9.

According to Axel Kahn, director of the public Institut Cochin, the movement results from the accumulation of budgetary tensions, the drastic cutting of research and technical positions, and what he calls a lack of government honesty. Together, these have led to despair among young researchers, many of whom leave France, never to return.

“The contrast between what the government says and the reality of laboratory research conditions has become intolerable,” said Kahn. “If it came to having to hand in my resignation, it would be because I felt that I was leading towards a doomed future. In this case, I would rather others take the responsibility.”

The group's demands, laid out in a petition that has collected the signatures of over 40,000 researchers since its launch on January 4 this year, are threefold. First, they want the government to pay its “debt” to national laboratories immediately, in addition to their attributed portion of the 2004 national budget. The French government has yet to pay labs their funding from the 2002 budget, and researchers protested in the streets last year over budget cuts.

Second, they want the government to cease cutting posts in national laboratories. Over 500 permanent jobs have been lost since 2003. At the Institut Cochin alone, 15 technical positions out of some 85 have been removed since 2002.

Finally, the movement's leaders demand a national consultation on the future of research in French society. “If we do not call upon the nation, we are dead,” Jean-Louis Virelizier, research director of INSERM, told The Scientist. “The matter has gone far beyond the reaches of the research ministry. We don't even consider this government is in a position to negotiate. The only way to proceed is to address ourselves, not to the government, but to the public.”

Virelizier considers that France has somehow “forgotten and fallen out of love with its research, its higher education, its innovation,” adding that “at this level of the debate, only the president of the republic can arbitrate. It's Mr. Chirac or nothing.”

The consequences of a mass resignation are still unclear. Directors of public research labs would resign their administrative responsibilities to the government, not their research duties. Yet without someone officially in charge of laboratory safety and actions, research could be paralyzed.

Under French law, the signatories can only offer their resignation, which may then be refused. If it is accepted, the government could place interim lab heads in their stead. However, given the movement's wide support—even the president of the French Academy of Sciences, Etienne Baulieu, has openly declared his support—finding suitable candidates may prove difficult.

Both Kahn and Virelizier insist they do not wish to resign and hope the government can convince them that they are committed to reforming the research establishment. “It is our only means of pressurizing the government,” said Virelizier.

Until yesterday (February 10), the government hadn't shown any willingness to give the movement what they demanded. In a press statement issued last night, however, the Ministry of Research and New Technologies launched a “collective reflection, open to all, to establish a shared diagnostic for French research and to prepare the legal framework which will help make concrete the great scientific ambition which our country desires.”

At a press conference this afternoon, Alain Tautman, organiser of Sauvons la Recherche, revealed that, far from receiving the news directly from the government, they got wind of it through the press. He added that the government had made no mention of the similar project proposed by Sauvons la Recherche.

But, he said, if the government agrees to bring scientists into the committee which will run the consultation and convinces them that they will allow the committee proceed independently, then they will be ready to work with the government.

Regarding the proposed mass resignation, Tautman said,: “The determination of the research and institute directors is total and it will take place [if it needs to]. Clearly, however, I do not wish this to be the case.”