On the Esplanade campus, the 21-year-old Scandinavian student fears falling back into distance learning, as if at the height of the pandemic.
“On video I’m not, so it risks putting me to a minimum”trust whoever finds it “the buildings are already cold”.
To satisfy the government’s ambition of 10% energy savings and try to curb a bill doubling to 20 million euros, the University of Strasbourg had considered the blocking of thermostats at 19 degrees from the beginning of the school year, the delay of the heating season or work on “good habits” (turn off the computer, turn off the light, think about your movements).
The decision of a third week of vacation at the beginning of January and another one at a distance in February, communicated to the 57,000 students in a video posted on YouTube, took everyone by surprise.
“We need continuity in education, especially when we are our age, it is important to be in a school and university environment”, regrets Paulin Enger, 3rd year student of English, back from an Erasmus year “great” in Dublin.
“One of the most profitable measures”
“Adding days to a long closing period is one of the most energy efficient measures”defends the president of the University, Michel Deneken, to justify a recovery in 2023 moved to January 9 instead of 3, as originally planned.
The Catholic theology professor says he consulted heritage engineers before making the decision to put some buildings out of heating.
A period of consultation with the trade unions will also have to open in the next few days to investigate the sectors concerned.
Exceptions to closure
Only one of the 20 libraries of the eight “UniStra” sites should remain open during the two weeks of closure. Some employees may also need to take mandatory leave.
“We are the ones who will pay using the internet and computers from home”guess for her part Camila Ferreira, a 30-year-old Brazilian enrolled in linguistic sciences.
Among the 600,000 square meters of buildings that make up the University with 18 Nobel laureates, some will still be spared from hunting for litter, such as the Insectarium which requires a constant temperature and studies diseases transmitted by mosquitoes, or the biology laboratory, “extremely energy intensive”.
“Strasbourg chemistry is the best in Europe (…), we must keep research at the highest level”, says M. Deneken. –
A “budget” and not “energy” savings plan.
Beyond this sobriety thought of as “a long-term answer”the president thinks aloud for the future “with a rather bold program”inspired by what is being done on the other side of the Rhine: “Why not come back at the end of August and finish later, so as to have a real month of January closed?”.
“In summer it’s 40 degrees here”Pascal Maillard retorts from his non-air-conditioned research office on the fifth floor of a south-facing building.
If you beg “shrinking economy”the academic secretary of the Snesup-FSU, majority in Strasbourg, warns: “an energy saving plan shouldn’t be a budget saving plan”.
The trade unionist sees a violation announced in the winter closures “public service obligation” et “a lonely decision”.
Faced with the energy wall, Education Minister Sylvie Retailleau promised Tuesday to do so“to accompany” establishments, stating that it was not necessary “especially no” let this plan of sobriety happen “at the expense of the students”even calling “to keep the lessons strongly face to face”.
“If the context continues to be bullish, we will have to negotiate with our supervisory authorities, because with this budget (560 million euros of annual operation) we do not know how to do it”agrees Michel Deneken.
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