Ariane Sharif wants to dedicate her life to the study of the brain but fears the only way to fulfil her dream will be to leave France for the United States.

The 26-year-old neuroscientist is one of many budding French researchers who could be driven abroad by low wages, a lack of posts and cutbacks that have touched off widespread protests and heightened fears of a «brain drain».

More than 5,000 scientists have threatened to quit their posts next month if the government does not inject more money into research, changing a policy which they say will leave France trailing behind other countries in scientific research.

?I?m really afraid I?ll have to go to the United States to find a job. It?s not what I want to do but I just don?t see what future I have in research here,? Sharif said at a protest march in Paris last month by about 10,000 researchers. Researchers say the future looks bleak for them and for research in France, where standards were set by pioneers such as chemist Louis Pasteur and Polish-born physicist Marie Curie. ?If we don?t get more funding, there will be less and less research in France, and that could deal our country a very serious blow,? said Sebastien Gaumer, a 30-year-old biologist.

A ?Save Research? petition launched on the Internet on January 7 accuses the government of being in the process of shutting down the public research sector. It has been signed by about 45,000 people, according to its organisers.

Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin and his conservative government have announced a money-saving move to replace 550 full-time entry-level posts with short-term contracts, and have cancelled or frozen millions of euros in funding.

The National Scientific Research Centre is still owed half its funding for 2002, and other major research institutes say they have had money frozen or cancelled.

Researchers say there are now far fewer entry-level posts available for postgraduates than three years ago, and that they are also poorly paid.

Raffarin is in a tough position. He wants to maintain the quality of research but is also trying to trim France?s budget deficit to within European Union limits. He hopes private backers will come to his aid by increasing their funding. After weeks of pressure, the government has agreed to set up a committee to consult the researchers on reforms and to ?take up the considerable challenge? of preparing for the future.

?The committee?s mission will be to listen, talk, promote the discussion of broad points of view with no subjects barred, and to collect and bring together ideas in a consensual way,? Research and New Technology Minister Claudie Haignere said. ?These are signs of mobilisation by a government aware of a situation which today is not the most favourable for carrying out exacting research in a competitive world,? she said.

President Jacques Chirac has vowed to give a ?new impulse? to research and said spending on it would rise from 2.2 per cent of gross domestic product now to three percent by 2010. But Chirac and the government have a long way to go to satisfy the researchers, who complain that the share of GDP the French government spends on research is markedly less than that spent by Germany, Japan and the United States.

Ten years after she finished school, 29-year-old Aurore Rincheval says she earns only 1,100 euros ($1,365) a month for her work as a biology researcher in Versailles, southwest of Paris. She has a 2-1/2-year-old son to bring up.

?It?s very tough for me. I?ve decided to stay here for family reasons but in the end many of us have little choice but to go to the United States where the wages are better and there are more jobs,? Reincheval said. Her colleague Nelly Godefroy has decided to go to Canada to continue her research, with the aim of making some money and returning to France later. ?I am not in research just for the money but there has to be enough to get by,? she said. There are no official figures showing how many French scientists go abroad.

Timothy Heritage