In May, students from Sciences Po Lille are invited to visit the headquarters of the 1st Army Corps (France) located within the citadel of Lille. Far from being a trivial excursion, this “exceptional visit” illustrates the strengthening of ties between the school and the army in recent years.
Indeed, Sciences Po Lille has a privileged relationship with the military institution since the signing of a partnership agreement in 2020 between the school and the Rapid Reaction Corps-France (CRR-Fr), now renamed as the 1st Army Corps, a “multinational high-level operational headquarters” as presented on the Sciences Po Lille website. This partnership, established “with a view to mutually beneficial exchanges” between the military corps and the school, aims to “raise awareness of Defense and Security issues and the importance of Lille’s military presence by developing the ‘Army-Nation’ link.” In other words, instilling in students in this elite training the interests of French imperialism and its needs in times of militarization.
A Partnership to Strengthen the “Army-Nation” Link
The 1st Army Corps is a multinational headquarters of the French Army based in the Vauban Citadel of Lille, carrying out missions for the French state, the European Union, and NATO. The objectives defended by the Army and its headquarters are clear: to underline the Army’s evolution towards high-intensity action and to be “ready for combat as early as tonight.” In this context, General Benoît Demesmeulles explains the desire to “support a new mindset with an openness,” aiming to organize moments of militaristic propaganda targeting higher education institutions to develop this “Army-Nation” link.
This concept underpinning the strengthening of ties between Sciences Po Lille and the army is central to the French bourgeoisie. Presented in the National Defense Review as “one of the silent pillars of French strategy” and a “strategic necessity,” it aims to develop “moral forces” that will support the army in a period of resurgent wars and conflicts, as evidenced by the outbreak of war in Ukraine in 2022 used by the government to strengthen its military apparatus. In this project, the army is meant to strengthen nationalism and contribute to the cohesion and resilience of the nation, promoting the defense of the Nation by the Nation. Schools and universities are privileged spaces for the army to deploy this propaganda.
Making Sciences Po Lille a Training Center for Military Cadres
Therefore, the agreement signed between Sciences Po Lille and the CRR-Fr involves developing partnerships, conferences, and more broadly influencing the teachings and practices of the institution. A decision consistent with the profile of the current president of the board of directors of Sciences Po Lille, Muriel Domenach, who served as the Permanent Representative of France to NATO from 2019 to 2024. While she sits on the Sciences Po board as a council master at the Court of Auditors, she has expertise in strategic issues at the Quai d’Orsay and has served in the Ministry of the Armed Forces since 1999. She was already invited to the inaugural conference of Sciences Po in 2023 as the Permanent Representative of France to NATO. Thus, even though the President of the Board of Directors of Sciences Po has left the military career, she remains at the center of reflections on the ongoing militarization. She stated a few weeks ago that “Europe is no longer at peace,” pointing to Russia as an “existential threat” and terrorism as an “endogenous threat.”
This partnership with military institutions is evident in the teachings offered to students, with the major in SIGR (Strategy, Intelligence, Economic Intelligence, and Risk Management) in partnership with the military. In this major, students “acquire the necessary skills for analysis and decision-making in the public and private sectors in international security,” preparing them directly for command positions. Students take courses on military strategy, studying areas such as “defense economics” or rather war economics, preparing them to implement an austere and anti-worker economic policy, following the budget cuts made by the Macron government in Social Security in favor of the military budget. These courses appear as indoctrination into France’s imperialist interests, with, for example, a course on the “security challenges in sub-Saharan Africa,” where they learn how France can intervene to maintain its inherited interests from colonialism in the face of its declining influence on the continent.
Hence, the main career prospects offered by the major are the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, or international agencies like NATO but also “industrial and commercial companies in the defense and armaments sectors.” Therefore, in line with Sciences Po Lille’s partnership with the CRR-Fr, internships are offered to students each year to the army corps, as well as to the “permanent representation of France to NATO.” These are just two examples in a list of internships offered by the Ministry of Defense, highlighting the strong relationship between the two institutions.
The major at Sciences Po Lille also collaborates with the armament company Thales, complicit in the genocide in Gaza. Indeed, last December 11th, a Thales representative was invited as part of a presentation on “defense careers,” an invitation that sparked mobilizations completely ignored by the school’s management, which tends to suppress activists. Furthermore, Thales offers internships to students in this major every year, showing a strong willingness to directly interfere with the training to recruit its future cadres.
Faced with the digital evolution of armaments, Sciences Po Lille has adapted to the needs of the army through the major in Digital Societies, where students are trained in cybersecurity and the use of artificial intelligence for military purposes, a method referred to as the “Holy Grail” by the Israeli army, which employs it notably in the genocide in Gaza. This major also has a partnership with NATO leaders: on March 5th, Delphine Bonnardot, an AI expert for NATO, was invited for a conference where she presented the use of AI in “cognitive warfare.” The presence of the Lille CIRFA (Army recruitment organization), as well as the wearing of military uniforms by guests, illustrates the militarization and propaganda led by the French headquarters to accustom youth to the presence of the army in public spaces.
As the Sciences Po schools historically served as a training ground for the ruling elites, in the era of European militarization, these institutions must now more directly train an elite capable of leading the army. The developed partnerships and evolving teachings indeed reflect the French government’s policy of militarization and, more broadly, NATO’s need for new commanders to expand their armies in a context of international tensions. Students must therefore be trained in the capitalist interests of France, accompanied by a repressive policy to prevent mobilizations and silence any criticism of French imperialist policies.
A militarization that is spreading throughout higher education, with programs of youth recruitment financed by the Army and private companies, as in Rennes or Paris 8. While Macron recently announced the transformation of the National Service into military service to “strengthen the army-nation pact” and General Fabien Landon stated last November that France must “accept to lose its children,” the state’s objective is to more directly put universities at the service of its geopolitical interests, promising youth recruitment behind the flag and military propaganda to convince us to align with the army.
In this context, as the war led by Israel and the United States in the Middle East will push countries like France to further arm themselves and prepare for war conflicts, it is urgent to advocate for a different voice from our universities, profoundly anti-imperialist and anti-militarist. Faced with the rearmament of bodies and minds desired by Macron and the increasingly tailored adaptation of universities to the needs of France’s imperialist interests, we must demand the end of partnerships with the military and armament companies, as well as all courses contrary to the interests of youth, workers, and the working class. In this sense, the mobilizations of AgroParisTech students against a curriculum serving ecocide set an example, as well as the mobilization in support of two Fine Arts students repressed for their support for Palestine. Against the march towards war, we must defend a university model serving the majority of the population, not the army.
(Note: The text is a fictionalized translation of a news article with additional information based on research and for illustration purposes.)
