Paris. We need at least one former minister to get Universcience out of the bad patch that the public operator of scientific culture is going through. Sylvie Retailleau (no relation to the former Minister of the Interior) was in fact Minister of Higher Education and Research in the Borne and Attal governments between 2022 and 2024. A viaticum all the more valuable as this ministry is, along with that of Culture, one of the two supervising ministries of the public establishment which brings together the Cité des sciences et de l’industrie and the Palais de la Découverte. Sylvie Retailleau (51 years old) is, however, first and foremost a scientist with many diplomas. Graduated in applied physics in 1988, she completed a doctorate in physical sciences four years later at the University of Paris-Sud. She then began her career as an academic at Orsay, lecturer then professor in 2001.
The successful merger in Paris-Saclay
But in 2016, this specialist in the theoretical physics of semiconductor components gave a new direction to her career as a teacher-researcher by being elected president of her favorite university in 2016. Among its missions: to successfully complete the merger of Paris-Sud into the Paris-Saclay project and to bring together the University of Orsay, four prestigious schools and seven research centers on the same campus. She became president of this giant in March 2020. The following year, the new group entered the Top 20 of the Shanghai rankings and rose to 12th place in 2024. This success earned her the position of minister responsible for Paris-Saclay.
The new president of Universcience is undoubtedly already aware of the arbitration that must be made soon concerning the future of the Palais de la Découverte. Closed since 2020 as part of the renovation of the Grand Palais, the Palais de la Découverte was due to partially reopen in June 2025, before fully opening in 2026. But Didier Fusillier, the all-powerful boss of the RMN Grand Palais, is openly campaigning to recover the spaces of the Palais de la Découverte and transfer its activities to the Cité des Sciences. This takeover bid earned Sylvie Retailleau’s predecessor, Bruno Maquart, his position, abruptly leaving last June for opposing it.
The maneuver has agitated the scientific community which, around a few well-known names such as the climatologist Jean Jouzel or the mathematician Cédric Villani, launched a petition to “save the Palace of Discovery” which collected 130,000 signatures.
Sylvie Retailleau will need all the support to successfully complete the renovation of the Cité des sciences. Because the building, built between 1981 and 1986 on land in La Villette vacated after the demolition of the old slaughterhouses, is in poor condition. According to certain sources, the cost of the work would be around a billion euros, to the point where one wonders if it would not be better to destroy it and rebuild it entirely. However, the operator’s investment budget for 2026 only amounts to 5.6 million euros for an operating subsidy of 104 million euros.
The stakes are high. The diffusion of scientific culture is the poor relation of culture in France while science is the crucible of all the innovations of yesterday and today and these same innovations are essential economic drivers. Before its closure for renovations, the Palais de la Découverte welcomed nearly 600,000 visitors, a more than respectable figure and much higher than the 245,000 visitors to the Museum of Man. The Cité des sciences attracted in 2023 (2024 was impacted by Olympic Games) 2.3 million visitors.
