Paris colleges bury hatchet

A quarter of a century after the carve-up of the Sorbonne, the Paris universities are staging anniversary celebrations next week aimed at repairing some of the remaining faultlines caused by the 1972 reform.

Looking to their future, they will also be unveiling a package of development plans which includes houses of residence for visiting academics, a Paris regional university radio station, a centre for Latin American studies and a comparative law centre.

The Sorbonne was until 1972 the only Paris university. Its giant faculties formed the power bases of higher education and its heads of department were the "mandarins'' decried by student protestors. The May 1968 student revolt had demonstrated the need for a complete overhaul of the universities.

"When the Sorbonne faculties were split up into a series of multidisciplinary universities, it took them ten to 15 years to find an equilibrium. The way we are organised is still unintelligible to foreign partners," noted Paris I president Yves Jegouzo.

The reason it has taken a quarter of a century for the Paris universities to pool resources lies in the bitter rivalries triggered by the original carve-up. In 1972, the education ministry refused to impose a rational portioning of the university from on high, calling instead on academics to come up with proposals.

The first to respond to the ministry's call was political scientist Maurice Duverger, who rallied colleagues in the old arts and law faculties and was promptly given the first university to set up - Paris I - and a plum picking of premises.

What followed was an academic version of the Klondike gold rush. Groups with close academic or political affinities formed to found one university after another, each clamouring for a share of the architectural spoils.

"The biggest fight was over premises - the Sorbonne and the law faculty were sacred. People tried to steal each others' territory," explained Mr Duverger.

"We practically had to padlock the best premises and post students as night watchmen. I remember one historian about to head a new university department bagging an office in the Sorbonne because it had a direct exit onto the street - in those days students were always taking heads of department hostage, so he had an escape route,'' he recalled.

The worst conflict was between Paris I and Paris II's respectively left and right-wing lawyers, who wanted the old law faculty by the Pantheon. "For both, it was a question of their legitimacy. We had to split it equally to the last metre'', said Mr Conac.

"Paris I and Paris II are still swapping offices and stairways in the Panthenon building to rationalise our respective layouts,'' explained Mr Jegouzo. "The carve-up brought out political, academic and personal divisions.'' When the dust settled, a more modern university landscape emerged, with new departments and courses, as well as the new management university Paris IX Dauphine and Vincennes University - the only response to radical student demands - which did not require the baccalaureate.

Plans for new, shared study centres are seen as central in keeping Paris on the map as a top university site. "French researchers go to Lausanne or Oxford for information on comparative European law which is here but scattered over 20 sites. It's the same for Iberian studies. We must rebuild resources which were broken up in 1972," explained Mr Jegouzo.

One thing broken up in 1972 which there is little chance of rebuilding is the Paris student community, which has lacked a natural centre ever since.