Today's Date:

Statement by M. Nicolas Sarkozy, President of the Republic (excerpts)

was very proud and happy to learn of the award of the Nobel Prize in Physics to Professor Albert Fert. This prize, which crowns the work on giant magnetoresistance, is shared with Peter Grünberg who had discovered the same phenomenon independently. In this respect, I'd like to stress that it is the achievement of European research which is crowned.

Professor Fert's career and the way he conducts his scientific activities marvellously illustrate the virtuous chain from fundamental research to applications which we have to strengthen. Professor Fert's work is in fact the culmination of fundamental research which began to produce initial results in the mid-1930s. The technological innovations it has spawned are now found in millions of people's daily lives, since it enabled the development of readout heads for our computer hard disks. There are also a host of other applications particularly in mobile telephone technology.

Professor Fert's work thus demonstrates that there can be no major technological breakthroughs without strong scientific bases. (…)

Professor Fert is a pure product of French excellence. A graduate of the Ecole normale supérieure (Prestigious higher-education institute with competitive entrance examination for teachers and researchers), Albert Fert is a professor at the Université de Paris-Sud, Orsay, and also heads the CNRS/Thales Unité mixte de physique [physics laboratory]. He is among those great scientists who show us how our higher-education institutions and research can develop promising innovatory solutions and so raise France's international profile. In this respect too, Professor Fert's career path is exemplary. So today it is wholly natural for the nation to express its great gratitude to him./.