Come to France

French President Macron said US climate researchers should come to France. He wasn’t joking.

Macron wants to poach top science talent from America.

by Rebecca Tan

French President Emmanuel Macron doesn’t kid around.

Last week, the newly minted French leader delivered a bruising rebuke of Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord in a televised address. And in a jab at just how backward US climate politics have become, he invited American climate researchers to move to France.

Don’t be fooled by the cheeky slogan “Make Our Planet Great Again” and the snazzy graphic design — this is an actual policy and platform to recruit climate researchers. France, it boasts, has “top-level research infrastructure and laboratories as well as an effervescent startup ecosystem.”

American researchers fed up with the Trump administration’s rejection of the urgency of climate change can fill in a form detailing their vocation, nationality, and research interests. Then they get a customized pitch for why they ought to move to France.

To court other frustrated scientists, the site lists open positions in France, rules for eligibility, and available research grants of up to 1.5 million Euros. At the end of all that, eligible candidates are asked to upload one-page CVs and wait for responses, which are promised to come within a month.

And it isn’t just scientists that Macron is looking to attract. Entrepreneurs, students, and even entire organizations are invited to apply, as long as they share an interest in climate action.

This underlines what my colleague Alex Ward said last week about this invitation as a strategic move. By encouraging American innovators, and now businesses and students, to move to France, Macron directly challenges Trump’s argument that pulling out of the Paris accord is in America’s economic interest. He’s also not hiding the fact that that he thinks he can lure top talent away.

The jury’s still out on whether American researchers will take him up on his offer, though there’s certainly some enthusiasm on social media.

This new recruitment effort is hardly the first time that Macron has stood up to Trump, or even to other world leaders. But it’s the first tangible evidence we have that this new French president puts his money where his mouth his, and that’s significant.