“There's nothing really we can do about this French government announcement but it's starting to get difficult,” says Nouhed Melaouah. A Tunisian who works as an executive for an airline, she has two daughters whom she is keen to see study in France. The eldest has in fact just left to do a masters in France having got her first degree in Tunisia, while her other daughter will soon be taking her baccalauréat examinations – the equivalent to A levels in Britain - and then heading for France for her degree. But the French government's recent announcement of a massive rise in tuition fees for students from non-European Union countries will make Nouhed Melaouah's plans for her daughters even harder.
“With the fall in the [Tunisian currency] dinar it's already been hard to manage for quite a long time,” she admits. To help pay for her daughters' education she has sold several items of family jewellery and some furniture while her husband has taken out a loan. “We'd prefer them to go, especially as the situation here is fragile,” says Nouhed Melaouah. “I don't know what's going to happen in the coming years. My daughter wasn't able to take her exams last year because of the strikes [editor's note, in Tunisia].”
The steep rise in tuition fees was announced by French prime minister Édouard Philippe, who said that from 2019 the cost of first degrees would rise from 170 euros to 2,770 euros and from 243 euros to 3,770 euros for masters degrees and doctorates. France is currently the leading destination for Tunisian students, ahead of Germany and Romania. The young Tunisians who come to France tend to head for the most prestigious institutions and to do research. In total there are nearly 13,000 Tunisian students in France.
Yet France may be a less popular destination in future. For the extra burden of the new tuition fees – which are opposed by many French universities themselves - comes on top of a major fall in the value of the Tunisian currency, the dinar, and major restrictions on how much currency can be taken out of the North African country.
As a general rule Tunisians can only exchange 6,000 dinars (about 1,780 euros) a year for an overseas trip. This is a relatively small sum when set against the value of the dinar which this year has reached 3.3 dinars to the euro, compared with 2.1 dinars to the euro in 2015. Under central bank rules parents of students studying abroad are allowed to transfer 4,000 dinars (1,185 euros) initially to help them set up and then a further 3,000 dinars (890 euros) a month. A couple of years ago young Tunisians living in France were still able to get by on this amount of dinars. Since then the currency has weakened and the same amount of dinars now buys far fewer euros; some 478 euros fewer than three years ago. That leaves Tunisian students receiving under 900 euros a month, meaning they struggle to pay for accommodation and transport.
Dorra Mahjoubi, aged 28, who is studying history of art in Montpellier in southern France, left Tunisia so she could pursue her dream to do a masters degree. It was possible thanks to several years of sacrifice on her part; before leaving her home country she spent four running her own business alongside her studies. “I come from a middle class family and my parents help me, but what's awful is that they money they send is worth almost nothing now in relation to the euro. And I can't ask them for more, they already do a lot,” she adds.
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Dorra Mahjoubi wants to do her thesis in France but if she is unable to find a thesis supervisor before the end of the year she fears she might have to go elsewhere or even return to Tunisia. “I want to do my thesis, it's a personal challenge, but I don't know if I will be able to do it in France.” she says. Recently Dorra went to Paris to give a street performance in front of the Sorbonne University with a sign reading “help me pay for my thesis” to make people aware of the problems faced by foreign students.
Sarra Ben Ahmed, aged 23, who is studying political science at Nanterre University north-west of central Paris is luckier: her parents work abroad and can thus send her money in euros. But Sarra is still unhappy with the planned tuition fee rises. “I'm not going to ask [my parents] to fund my masters or my thesis at more than 3,000 euros, as they've helped me so much already!” she declares.
“And then there's a real problem in the way in which this reform was communicated,” Sarra continues. “I wonder if there were any discussions with Tunisia in the context of the polices of co-operation between the two countries. After all, it's surprising that it was decided like that, taking everyone by surprise.”
Sarra has decided to join the protests staged by student unions. She has taken part in demonstrations in universities that operated in parallel with the actions by the so-called 'gilets jaunes' or 'Yellow Vest' protestors. “We have this idea that, as foreign students, we have to be polite, keep a low profile, in the end we're a bit invisible,” explains Sarra. “Here I think we really have to act and make ourselves heard.”
Though the minister for higher education, Frédérique Vidal, has said that students already resident in France and doing their studies here will not be affected by these new fees, many are worried and are, like Sarra, starting to find out about alternative options. “I don't want to be forced to take a loan and, at the same time, I don't know if I can work alongside my studies, which are already very demanding with the situation and with the research,” she says.
In Tunisia the local branch of the French public organisation Campus France, which sends around 4,000 candidates to France each year, out of a total of 10,000 applications made, is reluctant to comment in detail on the tuition fee rises in France. “It's still a little early, we're waiting to receive all the information,” says one source inside the organisation, who admits that they have not received any details about the reform since it was announced. Yet candidates in Tunisia started to apply to study in France from the start of this December.
Backed by local Members of Parliament, some parents in Tunisia have sent a petition to the country's central bank urging it to increase the monthly sum - currently 3,000 dinars - that can be sent abroad. That sum has gone down in value against the EU currency by 478 euros over the last three years. “As MPs we're also going to try to go and discuss it with the governor of the Central Bank but today Tunisia has a real problem with currency reserves, so we don't yet know if the response will be positive,” says Abderraouf El May, an MP for the new National Coalition bloc of Parliamentarians. “I am myself the product of a French school and we all know that it remains quality training. There is no language barrier and many Tunisians also go on to work in France afterwards … So it's important that this mobility continues.”
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- The French version of this article can be found here.
English version by Michael Streeter