
Cédric Villani: mathematician challenging to be Paris mayor - satchet
https://www.ft.com/content/73c7a6a6-ee57-11e9-ad1e-4367d8281195
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p4bl0
He is already an elected representative in the French parliament, being part
of the current government's majority. His political party and the government
have already passed several laws that are very damaging to research and higher
education (among other things, but these two topics Villani actually knows
something about, and he should care a bit given his background). He has never
said anything publicly about it, or only to support the government. I see this
behavior as proof that he doesn't care at all about being a mathematician
(well, except when it gives him credit he doesn't deserve), so he should just
be considered another random politician, and he's not even a good one.

Edit: fixed "dommageable".

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onlyrealcuzzo
"dommageable" is "damaging", for anyone who couldn't guess.

Can you go into detail about what his party has voted for that's so bad for
higher education and research?

I consider myself pretty academia-friendly, and there's a lot of things I'd
vote for that most people would consider damaging to higher education and
research.

For example, I think free college for everyone is a terrible idea. Most people
consider that heresy.

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p4bl0
First we do not agree on free education. I believe that's a good thing.

Now, what Macron's government did wrong with research and higher education is:
literally everything they did about it. The switch to high tuition as you said
(especially given that it was _only for foreigners_ , which I consider racist,
and anyway the Conseil Constitutionnel recently found this measure
unconstitutional). Parcoursup was a very bad decision: it is poorly designed,
it is much worse than the previous system for university admissions for
obvious algorithmic reasons that my undergrad students can spot (but that
Villani apparently can't?), and it also does not solve the actual problem
which is the lack of universities and professors. There is also the way they
force universities to merge by making funding conditional to merger, this
comes at high cost for no clear benefits (except for _maybe_ jumping a _few_
places in the Shanghai university ranking, which is pure bullshit). There is
the way they decided to fund public research: almost exclusively via calls for
project, which is a very very inefficient wqy of distributing money as
everyone has to work for month to make application and less than 10% of
applicants are actually funded so more than 90% of all this work is done for
next to nothing, and in addition to that the money is very badly distributed
with very rich man that have so much money they don't even know how to spend
it and a majority of labs where it becomes difficult to do any research at
all. Their funding policy also force universities to cut there spending which
is mostly salaries, meaning not replacing professors who retires for example,
which means even less professors while there is more and more students (and
that was forseeable, they all were born around two decades ago and have been
through primary and middle and high school, we saw them coming). I could
continue but I'm on my mobile phone so I will stop there.

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generationP
I'm curious, what's been going on with Parcoursup? (I don't read enough French
to understand the discussions.)

Also, I'm not surprised that tuition for foreigners is a lever they are
pulling. A government is responsible, first and foremost, to its own citizens.
Racism? Really? What about "localism" or "separation of duties"?

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pascalmahe
For the racism part: France, as an ex-empire, is very attractive to its former
colonies' students. And we have agreements to make it easier for them to come.
So we get many students from Africa or the Middle East, often on merits and/or
scholarships. In my engineering school, there were students from Turkey, Sudan
(might be South Sudan now)...

Raising the price of tuition will mostly impact people from these countries
rather than people from other European or American countries.

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LunaSea
So because France had colonies they now have an obligation to take in foreign
students?

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justAlittleCom
It's a moral obligation, yes. Plus, it's still nowadays a very powerful lever
to keep relationship with local elites.

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LunaSea
No, it isn't. They are independent countries and should be treated as such.
Diplomatic bribes aren't a good enough reason to continue doing subsidising
this.

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flashyfaffe2
Being a former Parisian, I can object here you can be a medal fields winner
and not having a clue about economic problem. Paris is facing quite sensible
issues right now ( higher debt, untidy streets, insecurity,etc...) and for now
all he's proposing here is very similar to what any others politician would
offer to get elected. Parisians need some radical changements and for now I
haven't heard anything from him tackling the right issues but just big
promises and gifts for all ( please note that this also applies to the others
candidates as well).

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tasogare
> Paris is facing quite sensible issues right now ( higher debt, untidy
> streets, insecurity,etc...)

Most of these problems stem from national-level irresponsible policies such as
uncontrolled immigration. They won't be fixed by the mayor alone, and they
plague most big and even medium cities in the country.

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crocal
As far as I can judge, the problem of untidy streets and insecurity in Paris
have nothing to do with "uncontrolled immigration". Do you have some evidence
supporting your statement?

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prideout
Not just a mathematician but a Fields medal winner.

The current mayor of Paris is also an interesting person, being a Spanish-born
woman from a working class family. She has made huge strides in the
greenification of Paris:

[https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/europe/paris-
anne-h...](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/05/world/europe/paris-anne-hildago-
green-city-climate-change.html)

~~~
jnaddef
Current mayor is hated by a lot of Parisians because of the "greenification of
Paris" as you call it.

She closed a few roads and made them pedestrian-only; that was not well
received by a number of people.

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yardie
This appears to bother the people that live outside Paris rather than most
Parisians. I'm all for it. I've watched my balcony become unusable from
pollution. I imagine if half the stuff that was collecting on the balcony
floor was going into my lungs my lungs would look like a 50 year heavy smoker.

~~~
jnaddef
I am all for it too, I was just giving some context for HN readers who might
be surprised to see a lot of hate comments regarding the current mayor under
most articles covering Paris elections :)

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97b683f8
Nothing to see here unfortunately, he's like any other politician. I mean you
wouldn't be able to tell he's received a Fields medal by the way he speaks and
what propositions he makes.

I too would like to hear him say " ... you bring up the subject of housing in
Paris and I'll tell you how I think about the problem: in mathematics we have
a rather abstract concept called a Group ... ".

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SiempreViernes
Maybe he’s secretly actually talking about a _differen_ kind of building?
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_(mathematics)](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Building_\(mathematics\))

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eindiran
He has a few videos on Numberphile:

On the Fields Medal:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp3sgYKULp0](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vp3sgYKULp0)

On his wearing of decorative lapel spiders:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4REVI30Qc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq4REVI30Qc)

Beauty vs Utility:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xopM9BFjcNo](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xopM9BFjcNo)

On his office:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLpkCZkWfc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eeLpkCZkWfc)

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acoye
He was commissioned for a report on AI while been part of the french
parliament. You can found it here in EN :
[https://www.aiforhumanity.fr/pdfs/MissionVillani_Report_ENG-...](https://www.aiforhumanity.fr/pdfs/MissionVillani_Report_ENG-
VF.pdf)

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ummwhat
Is he in favor of clopen borders?

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jefft255
I think he prefers neither open or closed.

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neonate
[http://archive.is/PhUZW](http://archive.is/PhUZW)

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billfruit
I have always wondered at the popularity of the first name Cedric, because the
name was newly coined(in the early 1800s) by Walter Scott in his novel
Ivanhoe, for the character Cedric of Rotherwood, a Saxon chief, and is not a
historically relevant name.

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julienreszka
Close enough
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerdic_of_Wessex](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerdic_of_Wessex)

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enriquto
I'm a bit sad to see such a brilliant mathematician playing the game of petty
politics. I like when scientists participate in "everyday" duties, but in this
case it feels that we completely lost the guy to administrative tasks.

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throw234234
Also see,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Painlev%C3%A9](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Painlev%C3%A9)

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hos234
Looks like another Macron. Well done.

~~~
p4bl0
It's one of the good reasons why it's a bad idea to have him in any position
with political responsibilities.

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hos234
I should have added a /s

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blondin
oh wow! much luck to him! i remember watching a talk from him on youtube and
putting that book he wrote on my wishlist.

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p4bl0
Maybe he should keep to writing books and making YouTube video. The guy has no
clue whatsoever when it comes to political matters. It's depressing.

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solveit
> The guy has no clue whatsoever when it comes to political matters.

I find it unlikely he is clueless and very likely that he has incentives that
we do not see.

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ajudson
paywall

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mlthoughts2018
Can’t help noticing this is an anagram for Cerci D. Villain (the D presumably
stands for Diabolical).

