Heads of French universities in European alliances ask Macron to clarify future of funding

A group of academics has warned that the ambitions of European university alliances are threatened by budgetary uncertainty in an open letter to the French President, Emmanuel Macron.

In the letter, published on 30/06/2026 in the French newspaper Le Monde, the heads of institutions involved in alliances urged Macron to "swiftly confirm a budgetary investment commensurate with the challenge" through a commitment from French ministries,

While they praise the idea of European university alliances, "a utopia that became a concrete reality, as evidenced by several hundred joint degree programmes, thousands of shared courses, nearly a thousand of which lead to micro-certifications", they ask Macron to end the "untenable ambiguity" caused by France and the European Commission's lack of certitude for the future of these alliances.

Macron is credited with originating the idea of alliances during his speech at La Sorbonne in 2017, where he proposed the creation of 'European university networks'. Since then, 65 alliances have been created, funded by the EU programme Erasmus+ and, in some EU…