How to Disintegrate

In its respect for the intellectual, France yields to no nation, but its treatment of its universities is something else again. Last week the French were pondering the implications of a wave of protest marches and demonstrations that swept through every university town. There was no violence, but, warned Chemistry Professor Charles Prevost in Paris: "This is our last peaceful demonstration. The next time we will go on strike." Among the universities' major complaints:

P: For the last ten years the government has promised the Sorbonne that it could some day have the huge (2.700,000 sq. ft.) Halle aux Vins for a new science center. But for ten years nothing at all has happened. "The wine merchants," says an official of the University Teachers' Federation, "are fighting a delaying action against us, and they seem very successful. What France needs is scientists, not alcoholics."

P: The Sorbonne library has only 1,000 seats for its registered readers. The number of readers registered today: 40,000.

P: The science faculty crams 2.200 students into auditoriums built in 1895 for a "maximum" of 1,400. Since 10,000 students are enrolled in science, only a small minority are able to attend their courses regularly.

P: "In our geology classes," says another official of the Teachers' Federation, "we have 32 microscopes for 540 students. For about half the audience in our amphitheater there is standing room only. Students squat on window sills or crouch on the floor; half cannot see the blackboard."

P: For all the honor they receive, professors get little money. Salaries range from $150 a month to $400. Laboratory chiefs make less ($90 to $120) than most skilled garage mechanics.

P: Of 70,000 students in Paris, about 39,000 either find rooms at the university or live at home. But the rest must find squalid attic rooms, often without running water and usually with an exorbitant rent of as much as $80 a month. "Many students," says Secretary Jacques Bertherat of the students' federation, "are forced to do their reading and writing in cafes and bistros, which at least provide some warmth during the winter months."

Partially because of such conditions, more than three out of four students enrolled in law, science, or letters abandon their studies after only one year. Says Chemistry Professor Prevost: "Unless our authorities act fast, the whole system of higher education will disintegrate."

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