Emmanuel Macron denounces a “Diktat” by Donald Trump. The French president castigated the way in which his American counterpart attacks science during the event “Choose Europe for Science” organized in Paris, Monday May 5. Since the arrival of the republican billionaire at the White House for his second mandate, academic research has been regularly in his crosshairs. “No one could think that this great democracy in the world, whose economic model is so strongly based on free science”, “was going to make such an error”judged The tenant of the Elysée.
“words like ‘genre’, ‘climate’, ‘climate change’, ‘vaccine’ or even ‘infectiology’ are attacked, even prohibited themes. If you use them, you can be returned “summed up on Franceinfo Didier Samuel, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the National Institute of medical Research (Inserm). The words “woman” and “feminine” are also prohibited. Faced with this situation, to try to attract scientists On the old continent, France announced put 100 million euros on the table and the European Union has released an envelope of 500 million euros. The University of Aix-Marseille, which was the first to launch the movement in France, received some 300 applications with its program “Safe Place for Science” (“Safety for science”).
Donald Trump attacked science as soon as he took office. On January 21, barely invested, he signed many decrees to remove them United States of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Paris Agreement, a decision in accordance with its notorious climate. Since then, the president has continued to drive the nail, as detailed by the New York Times or the American site stat. He notably charged the billionaire Elon Musk to make large cuts in public spending by placing him at the head of the Doge, for “Department of Government Efficiency” (Department of government efficiency).
In the health field, the Trump administration brutally cut, in March, $ 250 million in credits from the National Institute of Health (NIH), the American agency responsible for medical research. The first draft budget of the second mandate, presented by the American executive on May 2, proposes to almost divide the NIH budget by two, going from around 48 to 27 billion dollars. Behind these figures, a rain of projects collapses. “It is as if all the hopes and dreams that I had torn me away”reported in the columns of the magazine Science Katrina Jackson, who had to work on an infectious fungal disease endemic in the United States and who kills thousands of people every year.
For its part, Columbia University announced Tuesday, May 6, the dismissal of around 180 people after the abolition of $ 400 million in federal aids. “This represents around 20% of people who worked on research projects” affected by the Trump administration cuts, according to the management of the establishment, which evokes of the “Difficult choice” in order to “preserve” ses “Research capacities”. Sarah Fortune, a recognized researcher from the prestigious Harvard University, was forced to stop her research on tuberculosis in April. “My program costs $ 60 million, so it is possible that we found ourselves at the top of the battery because we cost a lot of money”she said to RFI.
“I think my program is only the first in a long series of programs that will be cut.”
Sarah Fortune, head of the chair of immunology and infected diseases of Harvardat RFI
The consequences of these decisions are likely to be disastrous at the national level but also worldwide, “Because the United States has played an international platform role in research”explained on Franceinfo Philippe Baptiste, Minister responsible for higher education and research. Reductions will affect many databases covering various themes, going “From health to fundamental biology”he warned.
As for climate sciences, attacks have notably focused on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). This key structure in the observation and knowledge of global warming ensures the follow-up of the ocean and marine ecosystems and is at the heart of Tsunami alerts, among others. Donald Trump plans to reduce his budget by more than $ 1.6 billion compared to the previous year. But hundreds of scientists and experts have already been dismissed. In this movement, the American president thus dismissed the authors of a crucial climate report. However, this text is one of the essential tools for legislators, businesses and governments in planning climate resilience measures.
These first measures aimed at climate already have direct consequences: data from meteorological balloons, floating probes in the air which notably measure temperature, wind speed and humidity, “have decreased by around 10%”reported in mid-April Florence Rabier, Director General of the European Center for Middle Term weather forecasts.
Donald Trump also tackled the USDA, the federal agency in charge of agriculture, notably prohibiting him from continuing work on global warming. He also targeted the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Foundation for Science, that the scientific journal Nature present as “One of the largest donors of basic research in the world”. The glaciologist Etienne Berthier, research director at the CNRS, relates to Franceinfo that his team has just lost access to information from the Polar Geospatial Center, the geospatial polar center, which depends on it. “These are important satellite databases for monitoring polar regions, especially glaciers and caps”he explains. Is it surprised by this restriction? “Honestly, we expect everything. I hadn’t expected it but I am not surprised either.”
“We undermine the production of knowledge here, while American research plays a leading role”said to Franceinfo the French climatologist Valérie Masson-Delmotte by launching the “stand up for science” initiative (“let’s defend science”), in early March. “The impact on future generations, on the biodiversity and health of the planet will prove to be catastrophic. The damage caused in such a short time will be much longer to repair”estimated the Academy of French Sciences, in January, condemning the“obscurantism” which wins the United States.
NASA is not spared. The provisional budget presented by the American executive provides for a reduction of approximately 24% of the budget of the American space agency. The most affected departments are the programs dedicated to space and land sciences, including certain satellite surveillance programs used to study climate change.
But the environmental branches of NASA are not the only affected. The Artemis program, which aims to install a lunar base, is hit hard by major changes, with the progressive abandonment of the SLS rocket and the Orion capsule when they were developed for it. The Lunar Gateway, a future resort placed in the Moon orbit, developed by NASA and several other international space agencies, should be abandoned. In summary, the natural satellite of the earth is no longer part of the priorities: it is now the red planet that comes first. Donald Trump even declared during his inauguration speech that he wanted to launch “American astronauts to plant the star banner [le drapeau américain] on the planet Mars “. This objective is also dear to Elon Musk, the boss of SpaceX, who intends to make man the first interplanetary species and primarily targets the cousin of the earth.
Beyond the federal agencies, the prestigious American universities, deemed too progressive by Donald Trump, are also in the viewfinder. Harvard “teaches hatred and imbecility”et “should no longer receive federal funds”wrote the American president on his social social network, in mid-April, after having cut $ 2.2 billion in multi-year federal subsidies. Reprisals to the remarks of the president of the university, Alan Garber, who had declared: “No government, whatever the ruling party, should dictate to private universities what they must teach, which they can enlist and hire, or on what subjects they can conduct research.”
Harvard’s slingshot contrasts with the positioning of Columbia, in New York, which agreed to initiate deep reforms. A choice considered by some as a capitulation before the Trump administration. Faced with the relentlessness of the American president, dozens of American universities demonstrated, at the end of April, against the“Political interference” government. “We are open to constructive reforms and are not opposed to legitimate supervision of the government”wrote in a joint declaration a hundred people, including associations of associations and university presidents. Among the latter are the presidents of Brown, Cornell, Harvard, Princeton and Yale, of the member universities of Ivy League, which brings together eight of the most famous universities in the country.
This resistance has not convinced a French scientist installed in the United States for many years. Universities of the United States will become “Empty shells”predicted to Franceinfo the one who wishes to keep anonymity. “The model of American universities will be destroyed and I do not see alternative models emerging”he deplores. For him, there is a climate in the United States “hostile” to science. And the problem, still according to this source, does not confine itself to Donald Trump, but to the whole galaxy which revolves around him, “much stronger forces” with, in particular, “The entire tech environment that has changed”.
