When Lionel Jospin went to the Bouches du Rhône in order to sign the Plan State-contract, he also announced the credits of the INRIA Sophia would be doubled.
Marseille will have its engineer school, a plan that had implied an argument with Sophia, last year. On Monday, May 15th, Lionel Jospin announced it in the Rousset, near Marseille, when a new 'Fab 8'unit of ST Microelectronics was inaugurated. ST Microelectronics is a plant of integrated circuits, representing an investment of more than 4 billion francs. It will deal with the first French prestigious school of the Internet. While it was planned to be built at the beginning on the Euroméditérannée site, the school should be set up in the technopole of Château-Gombert. It will be in charge of the training of engineers with 4 years' higher education, while it will be opened to continuing education for the new jobs linked to the development of the Internet networks and services.
As early as Thursday May 18th, the decision should be ratified by the CIADT (the Interdepartmental Council for National and Regional Development) that will be gathered in Matignon. The project will be financed by the contract of State-region Plan 2000-2006, that was signed by the Prefect of Region, Yvon Ollivier and Michel Vauzelle, the President of the county council, in the presence of the Prime Minister. At the same time, a structure of training in microelectronics will be created with the same kind of financing, on the coal basin of Gardanne, in the Bouches du Rhône.
Lionel Jospin did not forget Sophia Antipolis. He made it clear that the credits of the INRIA from Sophia Antipolis (the National Institute of Automatic and Computer Research) would be doubled in the area of the NTIC. But, on that point, no piece of information was given about the amount of the investment that the doubling may represent. The date of implementation was not given either.