It was against this backdrop that a National Education inspection on “work organization within Edufrance” was performed. The February 2006 inspection report, while concluding that the staff were fully employed, highly committed and professional, nonetheless pointed out that seven years after its creation, the Agency was still working with “an ill-defined project and held back by its dependence on public resources (a situation which, paradoxically, does not result in very close supervision by the ministries in charge).*

III – 2007-2008
From EduFrance to CampusFrance.

In the meantime, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had launched the Centres pour les Etudes en France (Centers for studies in France); in addition, a whole series of measures had been taken in connection with the seminars on French attractiveness organized by the previous government: new scholarships for students and researchers, an easing of the rules for the co-supervision of theses, the creation of technology and advanced research networks, new measures taken by the research orientation law authorizing the creation of centers of higher education and research, as well as the new “Pécresse law” which can provide educational institutions with a means of developing an international strategy. In particular, two jointly conceived programs should now enable higher education institutions to better organize the arrival of foreign students in France and prepare a successful academic career for them, while ensuring that these students are solvent once there are in the country, that their linguistic level is in line with the education they intend to acquire and that the preferred levels of studies are masters and doctoral programs.

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*L’Organisation du travail au sein d’EduFrance,  Inspection Générale de l’Administration de l’Education nationale et de la Recherche, report No. 2006-005, Feb. 2006, p. 45.

The first program, organized by the Minister of Foreign Affairs in close collaboration with the Ministry of Advanced Instruction and Research, the Interior Ministry (the inter-ministerial immigration control committee) and the educational institution conferences, makes it mandatory for foreign candidates to work through the Centres pour les Etudes en France operating in some thirty countries. These centers, operating under the CampusFrance banner and the authority of diplomatic offices, are equipped with an electronic tool that enables students to apply for admission online, dialoging with CampusFrance personnel, arranging an interview once their educational plans have taken shape, and choosing the institutions to which they wish to apply. Once the interview has taken place and the validity of the candidate’s degrees have been confirmed, the candidate completes an electronic application file that is transferred directly to the consulate for delivery of a visa, after the agent that has conducted the interview has given his or her opinion.
Lastly, this electronic file is made available to schools, through a secure procedure. Once this system is compatible with all the other electronic services intended for foreign students, particularly in connection with dematerialized admission, it will significantly enhance France’s attractiveness.

The second program, created by the immigration law of July 26, 2006, offers a streamlined procedure for granting visas to highly-sought after foreign students and, provided they have a job, gives them the opportunity to stay in France for two additional years after they have obtained at least the equivalent of a Masters degree. In like manner the “skills & talents card" (cate "compétences et talents") now favors the creation of economic projects in France by foreigners, some of whom originally arrived in the country as students.