"The undersigned are researchers who for many years have known French scientists as colleagues and friends, who have often visited French laboratories, who have participated in committees for the evaluation of French projects, laboratories and/or theses, and who have accepted in their laboratories French post-docs. We are deeply worried by the current prospects of French science, and in particular by the conflict which has recently developed between a large fraction of the French scientific community and the French government.

In recent years, support of French biological research (for example) has not kept pace with the support of biology in other countries. Thirty years ago, the budgets of French laboratories were comparable to those of most of the scientifically advanced countries, but they have been declining in recent years while the resources for basic research have been markedly increasing in countries such as the US, Japan, and more recently China. These budget increases were necessary for making available new techniques which have done so much to advance the biological sciences, and to respond to the realization that the field was becoming decisive in both pure and applied research.

Because similar budget increases were not provided in France, our French colleagues have lost their ability to compete efficiently at the highest level. Some of them have decided to emigrate, and those who have not taken that extreme step have expressed to us their deep frustration in view of their loss of competitiveness.

It is in this bleak context that one should reconsider both the decision to further reduce the CNRS budget and the decision to cut the number of tenured positions at CNRS and INSERM. These decisions have obviously disappointed all the French post-docs working abroad who intended to return to France, the French laboratories which expected these post-docs to return, and the students who were considering a research career. They have suddenly added to the financial difficulties of the laboratories the fear that talented young scientists will either move to other fields of activity or to foreign countries, which could make the decline an irreversible one.

We thus agree with the initiators of the movement "Sauvons la Recherche" that the recent decisions of the French government cast a very somber shadow on the future of French research. We strongly urge the French government to modify its program. French research competitiveness may benefit from a reorganization of the research system, but it also and most decisively requires adequate funding."

When we began the campaign for international support for "Sauvons la Recherche", we chose to reach out exclusively to members of the Life Science community, since we were much better informed about the inadequate governmental support in our field than in other fields. We were, of course, well aware that it is a problem that all French scientists are facing. Since the appearance of our text, we have received many requests from foreign scientists in other fields wishing to offer their support for the whole French scientific community. Consequently, we are now opening this site for signatures of scientists from all disciplines. To add your name to the list, you can fill out the form located either above or on the side of our original text, and your signature will then appear under the heading: "Signatures from all foreign scientists supporting the movement Sauvons la recherche."