Paris Nanterre University (French: Université Paris Nanterre), formerly University of Paris West, Paris-X and commonly referred to as Nanterre, is a public research university based in Nanterre, Hauts-de-Seine, France, in the Paris metropolitan area. It is one of the thirteen successor universities of the University of Paris. The university is located in the western suburb of Nanterre, in La Défense area, the business district of the Paris area.
Paris Nanterre University alumni include more than 15 cabinet officials, heads of state or government from France and around the world, like Emmanuel Macron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dominique de Villepin. Alumni also include heads of central banks, legislators and business people, like Christine Lagarde, Dominique Strauss-Kahn or Vincent Bolloré.
Contents
History
The Nanterre campus of the University of Paris
The Nanterre campus was built in the 1960s on the outskirts of Paris as an extension of the University of Paris. On November 2, 1964, the Nanterre Faculty of Arts and Humanities opened as an annex to the Faculty of Arts of the University of Paris (La Sorbonne), which it relieved. It became one of the largest teaching campuses in Paris.
Nanterre became famous shortly after its opening by being at the center of the May '68 student rebellion. The campus was nicknamed "Nanterre, la folie" (Mad Nanterre) or "Nanterre la rouge" (Red Nanterre, in reference to communism).
When it was founded in 1965, Nanterre “raised great hopes” and “was to be a place of experimentation for renewed teaching, the outline of tomorrow's university”, benefiting from the contribution of “famous professors” who “voluntarily left the University of Paris to take part in the Great Adventure”. Henri Lefebvre, professor of sociology from 1965 to 1968, influenced the students who initiated the May 68 movement, and then provided an on-the-spot analysis of the events.
In 1964, Nanterre was home to 2,300 students, and by 1968 it was expected to absorb 12,000.
Paris-X, then the University of Paris West
It was set up as an independent university in December 1970 as "University of Paris-X". Based on the American model, it was created as a campus (as opposed to the old French universities which were smaller and integrated with the city in which they were located). When the new autonomous university was created, the Ville-d'Avray University Technical Institute was attached to it.
In 1985 and 1989, decentralized branches were founded. In 1984, the promulgation of the Savary law, which created the current university departments (UFR), led to the opening of a satellite campus in Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines in 1985, followed in 1989 by the opening of another satellite campus in Cergy-Pontoise. In 1991, the University of Versailles - Saint-Quentin and the University of Cergy-Pontoise became full-authority universities.
In the 1980s and 2000s, the university was the scene of student protests. In 2008, the University of Paris-X became the "University of Paris West".
The Paris Nanterre University
In 2016, it became "Paris Nanterre University". During the same year, the new Max Weber Humanities and Social Sciences Centre was inaugurated. It includes 1 amphitheater, several meeting rooms and 124 offices, mainly for teacher-researchers.
In September 2023, five "Youth with Macron" activists were attacked by a dozen militants from the ultra-left group La Jeune Garde, who had come to put up posters for a demonstration "against police violence".
In November of the same year, in reaction to the Gaza war, pro-Palestinian and anti-Semitic tags proliferated on the university campus.
Campus
Nanterre is the second largest campus in France after Nantes, with its own Olympic-sized swimming pool and a stadium. It welcomes 35,000 to 40,000 students every year in all fields of studies: Social Sciences, Philosophy, Literature, History, Languages and Linguistics, Economics, Law and Political Sciences, as well as Teacher Training, Acting, Cinema, Physiology and Sports.
The university's facilities:
La Contemporaine Library and Museum;
Le Pixel Library;
the Bernard-Marie Koltès Theater;
and the University Sports Centre.
The university is known for its speciality in the fields of Law and Economics. Even though French universities are required by law to admit anyone with a Baccalauréat, strain is put on the students from the start and the first year drop-out rate consistently hovers in the 60% region. At the postgraduate level, the university offers very competitive programs (highly selective master's degrees in Law and Business) and partnerships with some grandes écoles such as the Ecole Polytechnique, ESSEC, Ecole des Mines de Paris, and ESCP Europe among others.
The Rene Ginouves Institute for Archaeology and Anthropology (Maison de l'archeologie et de l'ethnologie Rene Ginouves) is another important institution on campus, merging the departments of the CNRS, Paris I-Panthéon Sorbonne and Paris X-Nanterre.
As in most Parisian universities, there is a large minority of foreign exchange students.
Innovative programs
Over the years, Nanterre has developed innovative programs such as the double bilingual courses in French Law and Anglo-American, Spanish, Russian, German or Italian law; in Economics & Management (with half of the courses in French and half of the courses in another foreign language); and in History (with half of the courses in French and half of the courses in another foreign language). These programs have inspired many universities and grandes écoles throughout the country and are now renowned on a national level.
Nanterre Network
The Franco-German Summer and Winter Universities with higher education institutions of third countries (Nanterre Network) are an expression of the increasing internationalization of studies and research (Erasmus program; Bologna process, EU enlargement). In legal sciences, the management of the Franco-German studies at the University of Paris Nanterre plays a pioneering role in the establishment of Summer and Winter Universities. Thus, within the framework of its Europe-wide network for university cooperation (Nanterre Network), in collaboration with German and other foreign partners, Summer and Winter universities have been emerging since 2004 in Central and Eastern Europe, in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean region − with financial support from the German-French University (DFH/UFA), the Franco-German Youth Service and the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research (Parceco-Program). Since 2013, these tri-national Summer and Winter Universities have also extended to non-European countries.
In September 2012, Bernard Cazeneuve, France's Deputy Minister for European Affairs and patron of the 2nd Franco-German Summer University for Energy and Environmental Law at the University of Paris Nanterre, saw in this type of Summer University a “successful” approach to bridge the lecture-free period; approach which can even be “exported” and is therefore “conducive to the prestige of Franco-German cooperation in Europe”.
The oldest trinational Summer University in Vilnius, Lithuania, focuses on EU legal harmonization. It was founded in 2004 by the University of Paris Nanterre, the Johann Wolfgang Goethe-University in Frankfort on the Main and the University of Vilnius in the year of EU enlargement to countries particularly in Central and Eastern Europe. With their accession, the Baltic States were obliged to take over the entire law of the EU (acquis communautaire) and to implement the goals of the political Union as well as those of the economic and monetary Union. In the first few years, this Summer University was the joint end-of-year event for two binational law schools: the German-Lithuanian Law School (Goethe University of Frankfurt) and the Franco-Lithuanian Law School (Paris Nanterre).
The Summer University in Minsk, founded in 2011 by the universities of Paris Nanterre, Potsdam and the Belarusian State University, is devoted to topics of general European relevance, such as “alternative dispute resolution”, “new information and communication technologies”, environmental issues and other current issues. As in the EU, in the post-Soviet Community of Independent States (CIS) the tendency towards regional integration goes hand in hand with the attempt to harmonize national legal systems. Belarus is part of the Russian-Belarusian Union and a member of the (2014 contractually agreed) Eurasian Economic Union.
Rankings
In the QS, Paris-Nanterre University is ranked the 4th French higher-education institution in the field of arts and humanities, next to the Panthéon-Sorbonne University, Sorbonne University and the École normale supérieure de Paris, PSL University. The Times Higher Education World University Rankings considers Paris-Nanterre to be "one of the most prestigious universities in the country" and underlines the quality of its master's degree programs, its partnerships with the Grandes Ecoles, and its list of alumni.
In the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU), also known as Shanghai Ranking, Paris-Nanterre University is ranked 50th in Archeology and 51st-100th in Anthropology.
Paris-Nanterre University's master's degree in Psychology is the first in France in terms of employability and professional integration, according to Parisien’s ranking in 2018.
The university offers very competitive programs with highly selective master's degrees in Law and Business. Because of the number of applications submitted each year, this University is one of the most desired French high-education institutions, ranked 3rd in France.
Notable people
List includes notable people both alumni and faculty of the University. Alumni who also served as faculty are listed in bold font.
Alumni
Jean-Jacques Aillagon, former French Minister of Culture
Olivier Besancenot, former leader of the Ligue communiste révolutionnaire (LCR)
Youssouf Bakayoko, former minister of foreign affairs of Ivory Coast
Vincent Bolloré, current President & CEO of Bolloré
Luc Brisson, philosopher
Daniel Cohen, chaired professor at Paris School of Economics and contributor for Le Monde
Daniel Cohn-Bendit known as "Dany le Rouge", leader of the May 68 student rebellion in France and former Member of the European Parliament (MEP)
Mama Kanny Diallo, current Guinean Minister of Planning and Economic Development
Abdelaziz Djerrad, former Prime Minister of Algeria
Mike Downey, co-founder & CEO of Film and Music Entertainment and current Chairman of European Film Academy
Alain Ehrenberg, sociologist
Sylvie Germain, writer
David Guetta, DJ, record producer, musician and songwriter
María Ángela Holguín, former Colombian Minister of Foreign Affairs
Brice Hortefeux, current Member of the European Parliament (MEP), former French Minister of the Interior
Faculty
Maurice Allais, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economics in 1988
Jean-Jacques Becker, historian
René Rémond, historian and political economist
Denis Buican (1983–2003), historian of biology
Jack Lang (1986–1988; 1993–1999), politician
Michel Aglietta, economist and founder of the regulation school
Michel Crozier, sociologist and member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques
Emmanuel Lévinas (1967), philosopher
Jean Baudrillard, philosopher.
Paul Ricœur (1966–1970), philosopher
Étienne Balibar, philosopher
Henri Lefebvre, geographer, professor, and influential figure in the events of 1968
André Legrand, professor of French and comparative public law, Human Rights, Civil Liberties
Claude Lepelley (1984–2002), historian
Robert Merle, novelist
Louise Merzeau, communication scholar
Alain Pellet, expert on international law
Catherine Perret philosopher
Michèle Perret, linguistics professor and novelist
Nanterre in fiction
La Chinoise, by Jean-Luc Godard, 1967
My Sex Life...or How I Got Into an Argument, by Arnaud Desplechin, 1996
The Spanish Apartment, by Cédric Klapisch, 2002
District 13 (Banlieue 13), by Pierre Morel, 2004