Much of modern French history has been written in the streets. And so it was again last March when thousands of French scientists and their supporters took to the streets of Paris to protest budget cuts and to support radical reforms of their country's research enterprise.

Their complaint: that science in France is not an enterprise at all, but instead a hidebound system of hierarchies hamstrung by government-controlled financing that limits jobs, hinders innovation and punishes initiative. Joining them, at least in spirit, were scores of young French researchers in the Bay Area, including a number of current and former Parnassus-based postdoctoral students, who face the prospect of permanent exile should the French scientific system continue to ossify.

The French government's decision to defuse the immediate crisis by creating new scientific posts and restoring others may have stopped the mass resignations and street protests for now. But the ongoing debate about the future direction of French science still resonates in laboratories across UCSF. Simply put, France's drain has become UCSF's gain, thanks as much to the reputation of San Francisco as to the strength of the University's research. And with Europe and Asia now outpacing the US in scientific papers and patents, coupled with new visa restrictions that are reducing the flow of young foreign scientists to major research centers all over the country, it has never been more important to continue attracting bright minds to UCSF.

"I came to San Francisco because my adviser recommended UCSF and because there are only one or two jobs for every few hundred qualified science graduates in France," says Thomas Prod'homme, a UCSF neurology fellow. But in choosing UCSF, Prod'homme also chose San Francisco over Boston, which is the more common destination for France's well-educated scientific graduates. "Boston is known for its many research centers, but San Francisco also is well-known in France for its quality of life." Laurence Clement, a postdoctoral fellow in endocrinology now working at UCSF's Diabetes Center, agrees that the quality-of-life issue is particularly important to French nationals. "You have to know how to enjoy life to live in France. I think that is true in San Francisco as well." It helps, too, says Christophe Colas, a former postdoc in the UCSF laboratory of Paul Ortiz de Montellano, that the San Francisco region is home to a large community of French expatriates. "There are about 30,000 French people in the Bay Area, many around Silicon Valley," he explains.

Still, were science practiced at UCSF as it is in France, it is doubtful that even San Francisco's many charms would be sufficient to lure the current crop of 50 French students and scholars through the Golden Gate. "It is so much easier to do science here," says Colas, who now works as a pharmacologist at the South San Francisco drug discovery company known as Theravance. "In France, there is so much politics and people are narrow minded. Here, no one cares if you don't speak [English] properly, if you take off your shoes at lunch, or if you don't dress a certain way. Here it's all about how you do your job. Merit is what matters."

The science is also faster, reminds Rosalie Maurisse, a French research fellow studying cystic fibrosis at California Pacific Medical Center who uses a UCSF stem cell line in her work. "Anything and everything can be ordered immediately for a new experiment. In France, you have to ask and sometimes beg." Given that most scientists in France are employed for life by two government agencies, the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) or the National Institute for Health and Medical Research (INSERM), bureaucratic inertia shapes policy and prejudices as well. "The state sets the scientific vision," says Prod'homme, "and everything private is [considered] bad. It is not possible to get government or [private] association grants, whereas in the US, every disease has a [support] foundation." French researchers are also quick to depict those in the private sector as somehow impure, says Colas. The lack of capital risk further encourages a more conservative approach to scientific questions than those posed by their American industrial counterparts, who must consider profitability first. Moreover, says Clement, even if young researchers do manage to secure a position in France, they must usually labor for decades before getting their own laboratories. "And then it's only because you're taking over someone else's work."

For all the complimentary comparisons, however, no one is advocating a wholesale importation of America's competitive model. State-financed science has its virtues, Colas insists, particularly if it engenders less fear and encourages more research into problems of human health. Of course, the freedom to fail is also one hallmark of university researchers, who do not have to brave shareholder meetings. UCSF is known as well for its exceptionally collaborative culture and the nurturing of new faculty, who include the French-born and -educated Christian Vaisse, once part of a French team that helped confirm leptin's role in human body-weight regulation. Such factors -- not to mention the higher salaries -- exert a powerful attraction on young French scientists and probably ensure, for the time being at least, that the Paris-San Francisco connection will continue. Will it last indefinitely? Much depends on the deliberations and conclaves that will roil France later this year. Colas, who hopes to return to Europe one day, thinks reform is impractical. "France needs an entirely new system that arises next to the old one." Prod'homme is even less optimistic. "There will be a lot of talk and then nothing will happen." If so, UCSF may want to adopt the "Marseillaise" as its fight song.

See also:

UCSF Today: A New French Revolution?