ArticleJune 20265 min read

The sea must be the new horizon of the French university

Published in Marine & Océans

Culture, education & maritime societies

Summary

Drawing on the report submitted by Deep Blue to the Conseil d’État, a plea to train new generations in maritime issues.

Article translated from French. The translation may contain inaccuracies: only the original version is authoritative. Read the original version

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France, with the world’s second-largest maritime space, must better train those who will be able to think about it, defend it, administer it and govern it. Particularly in Paris, which concentrates a considerable share of the higher-education institutions from which decision-makers come.

France today has considerable maritime assets: a vast exclusive economic zone (EEZ), overseas territories in every ocean, ports, a first-rank Navy, researchers, manufacturers and companies that carry its influence. But these assets will only truly count if the new generations called upon to decide, negotiate, administer, argue or invest in maritime matters are trained to understand how they work.

It is this gap that is documented by the report produced by Deep Blue¹ for the Conseil d’État, written by Hugo Sannier. The finding is not that of a maritime desert in French education. The sea is present in secondary-school curricula, in several educational schemes, in the “maritime issues” classes, the BIMer² or the actions carried out with the French Navy. But this presence remains scattered. It raises awareness more than it builds a genuine maritime culture among future decision-makers.

What if our EEZ began on university benches… For an EEZ is not defended by proclamation. It requires lawyers trained in the law of the sea, economists able to read logistics chains, geographers attentive to ports and straits, international relations specialists familiar with oceanic balances of power. This is where the university has a decisive role to play. Maritime issues do not concern only specialised schools. They also belong to law faculties, institutes of political studies, business schools, and economics and public administration programmes. France readily speaks of maritime power. It has all its attributes. What remains is to better train those who will have to administer it tomorrow.

FROM THE ENSM TO THE OCEAN INSTITUTE…

This finding should not lead to the unfair indictment of a country that has supposedly built nothing. France has remarkable centres of excellence. The Ocean Institute of the Alliance Sorbonne Université is one of the most convincing examples. Under the impetus of Admiral Christophe Prazuck, it paved the way for a place able to bring marine sciences and maritime issues into dialogue, overcoming the usual divisions between disciplines. Today, under the direction of Marina Lévy, this centre continues to extend its influence by bringing together research, training and dialogue with society. It relies on a considerable ecosystem of laboratories and teachers. In the Earth, environmental, climate and life sciences, it offers a portfolio of training and research that shows what a genuine university ambition for the ocean, focused on the great contemporary challenges, can be. The École nationale supérieure maritime is one of the finest examples. Under the impetus of François Lambert, the ENSM embodies a rare success: training high-level seafarers and engineers, involving private actors and shipowners, maintaining a strong professional culture, and promoting a demanding and operational merchant navy. Hugo Sannier’s report shows this clearly: the ENSM does not merely train seagoing personnel; it contributes to building a maritime culture, a crew spirit and a living relationship with maritime professions.

The network of maritime vocational high schools, the École navale, and technical and scientific training programmes also form a solid foundation. France knows how to train seafarers. It knows how to train engineers. It knows how to produce high-level oceanographic knowledge. In this field, it starts from a very high level. That is precisely why its relative lag in the humanities and social sciences is becoming hard to ignore.

It is in the humanities and social sciences that the contrast is sharpest. The maritime exists there in fragments: a session on globalisation, a chapter on straits, a few hours devoted to the law of the sea. These are not negligible. They reflect a real interest. But they are not enough to constitute a structured field capable of providing lasting training in maritime issues.

There are nevertheless solid footholds. Aix-Marseille Université remains an important centre for maritime and transport law. Teachers, researchers and specialised centres continue to carry these subjects consistently. Several recent signals, however, call for vigilance. The closure of the Centre de droit maritime et océanique of Nantes Université, decided on 6 February 2026 by the institution’s board by twenty-two votes in favour, four against and seven abstentions, made a strong impression. The mobilisation of the maritime and academic world changed nothing. Beyond the Nantes case, it is a symbol: at the very moment when maritime issues are becoming central, some specialised university structures are struggling to keep the subject alive.

THE PARISIAN CASE

This one is even more telling. Paris is not a port, it will be said. Precisely: that is part of the problem. The capital concentrates a considerable share of the universities, grandes écoles and training institutions from which senior civil servants, political leaders, business executives and lawyers emerge. If the sea does not make greater inroads into rue Saint-Guillaume, rue d’Ulm or place du Panthéon, it is a safe bet that it will remain on the margins of administrative and political reflexes. Decision-makers do not despise the sea; very often, they have simply never been trained to think about it. At Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, Professor Philippe Delebecque long helped to give maritime law a place of excellence. His retirement today recalls the need to extend this academic ambition, at a time when negotiations at the International Maritime Organization show how much norms have become an instrument of competitiveness. Today, in the major Parisian programmes in law, political science, economics or management, the maritime hardly exists in the form of a master’s degree, a university diploma, an identifiable track or an independent chair.

None of this is irreversible. It would be enough for a major French university to open the maritime path in the humanities and social sciences to create a knock-on effect. Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne, France’s leading university in many fields of law and the humanities, could play a particular role. There are encouraging signs. Under the impetus of its president Christine Neau-Leduc, the university already hosts many conferences, initiatives and works related to the sea. The challenge now is to cross that threshold and structure a demanding offering aligned with French maritime ambitions and the environmental demands of our century.

Maritime power is not measured only by the extent of a country’s exclusive economic zone or the weight of the maritime industry in its GDP. It is also measured by the place the ocean occupies in the training of those who write the law, steer the economy, negotiate treaties and govern the state. As long as the sea remains absent from the lecture halls where decision-makers are trained, French sovereignty may well extend far offshore, but it will remain imperfectly thought through.

Note on the author

President of the university think tank Deep Blue.

Notes

1.
The Deep Blue think tank, founded in 2023 at Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne by master’s students, brings together students from the major Parisian grandes écoles and universities around maritime issues.
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2.
The Brevet d’Initiation à la Mer (BIMer) is a French national education diploma, created in 2020 on the model of the Brevet d’Initiation Aéronautique (BIA). It is aimed at volunteer pupils from the final year of lower secondary school onwards, upper-secondary students and, in some cases, university students.
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