France has launched Choose France for Higher Education, a new strategy to strengthen its attractiveness to international students, researchers and highly qualified talent. Presented on 21 April by the French Ministry for Higher Education and Research, it builds on the 2018 Bienvenue en France framework, which set the ambition of welcoming 500 000 international students by 2027. With France on track to reach this target, the new strategy marks a shift from a primarily quantitative approach to one focused more strongly on quality, strategic priorities and long-term talent pathways. 

The strategy comes at a time of intensified global competition for talent. In this changing landscape, France aims to consolidate its position not only as a major study destination, but also as a country able to connect international education with research excellence, skills needs, employability and international partnerships. 

The strategy highlights the country’s competitive advantages including world-class research infrastructures, recognised universities and laboratories, a commitment to academic freedom and scientific integrity, a highly diversified international student population, and a well-established international promotion architecture, notably the Campus France network, present through more than 275 offices in 139 countries. 

The new strategy seeks to make France’s attractiveness policy and practices more targeted and better aligned with national and partner-country needs. Rather than relying mainly on student demand, France aims to structure international recruitment around priority fields, labour-market needs, research capacity and diplomatic partnerships. This includes a stronger focus on employability and on continuity between study, research and work. The strategy identifies several operational priorities: 

• Priority disciplines: stronger focus on health, STEM, digital technologies and AI, quantum technologies, biotechnology, environmental sciences, energy, low-carbon mobility, space, food and ICT. 
• Strategic scholarships: 60% earmarking of French Government Scholarships to support STEM fields from 2026. 
• Student and researcher experience: planned measures include simpler applications, stronger administrative support after arrival, International Mobility Centres across all regions, and dedicated “attractiveness officers”. 
• Study-to-work pathways: smoother transitions from Master’s to doctoral studies, postdoctoral research and employment, supported by better residence-permit procedures, including the “Talent-Researcher” permit. 
• Language and accessibility: expansion of English-taught programmes and French as a Foreign Language provision to reach more non-Francophone students while maintaining the country’s cultural and academic appeal. 

The new strategy also revisits the question of differentiated tuition fees for non-EU students, first introduced under Bienvenue en France in 2019, but applied unevenly across institutions due to extensive exemption practices. Under Choose France for Higher Education, France intends to make their application more systematic from the September 2026 intake. The current fee levels for first-time enrolment in public higher education institutions are EUR 2 895 per year at Bachelor’s level and EUR 3 941 at Master’s level, while doctoral students remain outside the differentiated fee regime. 

Differentiated fees are perceived by the government as a way to support a more qualitative attractiveness policy, generating additional resources for institutions while allowing scholarships and exemptions to be used more strategically for priority profiles and fields. However, universities have raised concerns about possible effects on institutional autonomy and France’s attractiveness, particularly for students from less advantaged backgrounds.  

Following criticism, the planned cap on institutional exemptions appears to have been softened: instead of limiting universities to exempting only 10% of affected non-EU students, the revised phased approach would allow exemptions for up to 30% of students in 2026, 25% in 2027, and 20% from 2028 onwards, giving institutions a transition period while still moving towards more systematic application of differentiated fees.