France Celebrates American Independence with New Master’s Fellowship

July 4, 2026, will mark 250 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Last month, French President Emmanuel Macron inaugurated a new fellowship for graduate students from the USA in advance of the celebration. The Lafayette Fellowship will fund 30 talented American students who want to study in France for their Master’s degree. Here’s a look at the new funding scheme and what it says about relations between France and the USA.

Why is it called the Lafayette Fellowship?

According to the Lafayette Fellowship page, the new program celebrates both the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and ongoing “French-American friendship.” The fellowship program is sponsored by the French Embassy in the United States, with specific links to both the Embassy’s Office for Science and Technology (France Science) and the French Institute for Culture and Education (Villa Albertine).

During a visit to Villa Albertine last month, Macron emphasized that the Fellowship embodies the legacy of its namesake, the Marquis de Lafayette.

This fellowship is based on trust, on youth….A new generation of Americans crossing the ocean not to wage war but to invent the future of science and culture together with this common ideal, the legacy of the marquis de Lafayette, which is a legacy of enlightenment and belief in precisely reason, in culture, and in education.

Lafayette is known as the “Hero of Two Worlds” because he played a pivotal role in the successes of both the American and French Revolutions. Lafayette was a French politician and military officer who joined the American Revolution and secured thousands of French troops in aid of the American cause. After the end of the American Revolution, he returned to France, where he advocated for reform and civil rights during the start of the French Revolution.

About the Lafayette Fellowship

The new funding scheme will welcome 30 American graduate students to France on a yearly basis. Students should be continuing their studies in STEM, humanities and social sciences, or the arts, and the fellowship is aimed at future leaders in these fields whose studies will focus on “major global challenges.”

Fellowship students will also participate in the French-American Leadership program, designed to develop leadership skills and connect students with top minds and mentors.

The Lafayette Fellowship provides:

• A monthly stipend (€1,500)
• Tuition at one of 15 French institutions
• Application fee waivers
• Visa fee waivers
• A round-trip flight to and from France
• Travel costs associated with the French-American Leadership Program

How to apply?

The program’s application opened at the end of August and will close on November 30th, 2025, for 2026/27 fellows.

To qualify for the program, you must:

• Be younger than 27 years old as of July 1, 2026
• Hold a bachelor's degree from a US institution awarded between January 2023 and June 2026
• A GPA of 3.7 or higher on a 4.0 scale
• Be accepted to one of the 15 partner institutions, including:
  • HEC Paris
  • Sciences Po
  • University of Bordeaux
  • University Paris Dauphine

You do not need to speak French to qualify for the Fellowship.

What’s next?

The 2026/27 Lafayette Fellowship is the inaugural year for the funding program, and Macron’s comments during his address at Villa Albertine indicate that France hopes to continue the program as part of its strategy to attract more global talent to its universities and industries.

He noted that the initial concept of the Fellowship was based on discussions with former President Biden during a state visit to France, and that recent US “decisions about universities and sciences” encouraged the program developers to choose French institutions like the Sorbonne to “be a sort of good partner for those who want to follow up their research.”

Online interviews of finalists will begin in December 2025, and the fellows will be announced in February 2026. The Leadership program begins on July 4th, 2026, in Paris.