Universities would like to apply a rate of 5

Renovate campuses to poorly maintained and obsolete buildings, providing the students of good conditions of work, housing and pleasant places of life near their schools, return to the heart of the cities banned University sites of the centers of power in their construction in the 1960s due to lack of place or out of fear of subversion... Campus operation, launched in 2008, has all these objectives both. Focus online is the idea of raising the France a better rank in the international competition of diplomas and patents by attracting more students and foreign researchers. Three years later, these high ambitions are still maturing. Well, they will more further than the construction and renovation projects programmed. Before laying the first stone, the reorganization of the statutes and operating administrative institutions was necessary.

Granting autonomy to universities wishing to law LRU (relating to the freedoms and responsibilities of the universities of August 2007) and to transfer the control of their finances, the State has set its conditions: that they are developing the means to manage these funds and that they gather. "It's logic," said Julie Roujoux, responsible for Campus mission to the Office of Valérie Pécresse, the Minister of advanced education and research. These Poles are consistent sets, a greater mass of researchers, students, a wider choice of disciplines and greater visibility overseas. "In Strasbourg, the three universities, Louis Pasteur, Marc-Bloch, Robert Schuman as well as the University Institute of teacher training and merged into a single entity in January 2009. Elsewhere, the institutes closer, join schools of engineers to form these PRES (research and upper education pole), public institutions of scientific cooperation, now responsible for their destiny. Prior to be submitted to the Ministry, Campus projects have been developed at least endorsed these structures in which also serve local communities. They are involved, including the title of donors, to improve access, provide new public transit, public spaces...

The choice of the PPP

These major projects have not yet started. "The Department seems to be assumed that they must be conducted according to the procedure of public-private partnerships (PPP), to preserve the public finances and to go faster," says Yves Larmet, Vice President of the University of Strasbourg. "Once the PPP is signed, the time frame within are perhaps less long than with a mastery of classical public book." In the meantime, the development of contracts can take between eighteen and twenty-four months. That said, financially is really the choice ", queries Jean-Noël Larré, the Director of real estate and the development of the University of Toulouse. The PPP is to load a company project, consisting of a company, a team of master work and an investor, to finance, build and manage buildings for twenty-five to thirty years, with a fixed in advance rent. In the case of the operation Campus, this amount to pay annually is interest earned by a capital attributed to each University and placed at a rate of 4.25 guaranteed by the State for the duration of the partnership. Term, the building returned to the University that retrieves the property and operating expenses. "Lyon, for example, our staffing of the State is EUR 575 million." This sum will produce 24 million euros of interest per year, that we reverserons to the project company. "So one should not confuse this capital with our investment capabilities", said Jean-Michel Jolion, responsible of the project for this site. Strasbourg, the capital provided by the public power of 375 million will earn 16 million euros of interest per year. Aix-Marseilles, officials expect a staffing less important than the expected 600 million. At Toulouse, the project would require 395 million.

"Two years ago, announced us EUR 5 billion, it was fantastic, said the head of Campus of one of 12 cities chosen." Since then, many other billion have been promised and ours have become a little virtual. "In detail, the calculations are neither simple nor even very accurate. Universities would like to apply a rate of 5.5 compared to 19.6 VAT to the work of rehabilitation of their buildings, "should be a specific Act and we do not take the path", meets Department. Another question: will housing student, generally funded by social housing credits, benefit from these advantageous arrangements in a PPP Finally, in a master of classic public communities recover, through a compensation fund, VAT which, in the case of a PPP is counted in the overall budget. "In total, the difference between the assumptions most beneficial and the most expensive solutions stood at EUR 150 million on a total of$ 390 for the first phase of operations", says Jean-Michel Jolion.

Again not to do

Another requirement of the Department, prefer the rehabilitation of buildings even heavy over new construction. Three quarters of the operations consist of adaptations of obsolete facilities, standards updates, work for energy savings... "which sometimes reserve of big surprises during construction and for which PPPs are not necessarily the best solution," continues the "Mr Campus" of Lyon. It follows approximately the site of Insep (national Institute of sports and physical education) whose renovation is led by a group led by the Group Vinci, via a PPP. It is not the only issued criticism against this Assembly. "Imagine a library, twenty years ago, the tables and shelves for the most part." Today, it is mostly accessible computers, digital archives, well placed catch, wireless networks... I am researcher and I do not know to say how to evolve the buildings, laboratories... It is possible to register this local flexibility in the agreement but its cost is unpredictable. "I do not want to choose a synonym of Pharaonic rental solution, it is public money and we're not here to finance the construction industry", explains Yves Larmet in Strasbourg.

The months of gestation of the operation gave time to arm themselves to universities: engineers, specialists in real estate, old equipment makers have been recruited in order to discuss and stand up, if necessary, to experts from the public works and building groups seeking them regularly. For their part, these large groups were able to reach for connoisseurs of the academic world to facilitate contacts that sometimes turn to the dialogue of the deaf for ideological reasons. Bordeaux, it is the Aquitaine region, which is opposed to the public-private partnership. Lyon, communities are not enchanted by this Assembly. Next step for Lyon and Strasbourg, a little ahead on others: go to defend their record in Bercy. Ironically, their responsibility, according to the law, to prove themselves that the use of the public-private partnership is the least expensive solutions to carry out these projects. Must adhere to this postulate and some are preparing to defend a position a little offset.