Back to Campus: 5 Surprising Stories on the Menton Campus

On Monday, 4 September, 181 first-year students attended the official back-to-school ceremony of the Menton campus in the presence of Mathias Vicherat, President of Sciences Po, Sergei Guriev, Provost, Jeanne Lazarus, the new Dean of the Undergraduate College, Youssef Halaoua, the new Campus Director, Ilhan Lalali, valedictorian from the class of 2022-2023, Yves Juhel, Mayor of Menton, Bernard Asso, Vice-President of the Alpes-Maritimes departmental council, Magali Altounian, Regional Councillor for the Provence-Alpes-Côte-d'Azur region, and Isabelle Rosabrunetto, Vice-Minister for external relations and cooperation of the Principality of Monaco. Caroline Hayek, journalist at L'Orient-Le Jour, gave the inaugural lecture.

Launched in 2005, the Menton campus is home to the Mediterranean-Middle East geographical minor. At the start of the 2023/2024 academic year on this highly cosmopolitan campus, there is more students in the English-speaking stream than in the French-speaking stream! 60% of first-year students are international, with a total of 39 different nationalities.

Did you know these 5 surprising stories about the Menton campus?

The first student on campus is... Malotru! In the "Bureau des légendes” (a French spy show which English-speaking adaptation will be directed by George Clooney and titled “The Department”), he explains that he studied on the Menton campus.
Youssef Halaoua, who is directing the campus for the first time this year, is an alumnus from the second intake of students (2006).
The campus used to be a public hospital with a maternity unit, which closed in 1975 and was the birthplace of many Menton residents.
Italy can be reached on foot from the campus. The border is 2.2 km away, a twenty-minute walk.
Each year, the students plant a lemon tree in an estate overlooking the Borrigo valley, in the hills above Menton, the city of lemons.

And to find out more, watch our video tour of the Menton campus: