Panthéon-Assas University Paris

Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, abbreviated as Assas University (French: Université Paris-Panthéon-Assas) and commonly known as Assas or Paris 2, is a public research university in Paris, France.

It is considered the direct successor of the Faculty of Law of Paris, the second-oldest faculty of Law in the world, founded in the 12th century. Following the 1970 split of the University of Paris, often referred to as the 'Sorbonne', in the aftermath of the May 68 events, law professors faced decisions regarding the future of their faculty. Out of 108 law professors, 88 elected to sustain the legacy of the Faculty of Law of Paris by establishing a new university dedicated to the study of law. The university is housed within the same two buildings that previously accommodated the Faculty of Law of Paris.

Panthéon-Assas, now an independent university, continues to offer the law courses associated with Sorbonne University, having declined to officially integrate as one of its faculties.

The majority of the 19 centres of Panthéon-Assas are located in the Latin Quarter university campus, with the main buildings on Place du Panthéon (Panthéon Centre) and Rue d'Assas (Assas Centre), hence its current name. The university is composed of five departments specializing in law, political science, economics, journalism and media studies, and public and private management, and it hosts 24 research centres and five specialized doctoral schools. Every year, the university enrolls approximately 18,000 students, including more than 3,000 international students.

History

The University of Paris, commonly referred to as the 'Sorbonne', was founded in the middle of the 12th century and officially ceased to exist on 31 December 1970, following the student protests of 1968. Following the University of Paris split, the majority of law professors, 88 out of 108, opted to maintain the essence of the Faculty of Law of Paris by reestablishing it as a new university. In pursuit of this ambition, they founded along with professors of economics the 'University of law, economics and social sciences of Paris' (Université de droit, d'économie et de sciences sociales de Paris), and kept in it the same buildings with the same research centers. Panthéon-Assas is considered today as direct inheritor of the Faculty of Law of Paris.

The official name of the university was changed to 'Paris II Panthéon-Assas University' in 1990. The name Panthéon-Assas is a reference to the main addresses of the pre-1968 Faculty of Law of Paris, which are now part of the university; namely, the buildings on Place du Panthéon and Rue d'Assas. The university is also referred to as 'Assas' or 'Paris II,' 'Sorbonne-Assas' and 'Sorbonne Law School'.

After the creation of a new Sorbonne University, to which Panthéon-Assas provides law courses in joint degrees, Sorbonne University wanted to integrate Panthéon-Assas as a faculty of law but Panthéon-Assas preferred to remain an independent university within the Sorbonne system.

In 2022, its official name became Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.

Administration

Panthéon-Assas is governed by an administration council, a scientific council, and a council for studies and university life. Members of these boards serve two-year terms. The president of Panthéon-Assas is elected by members of the administration council, for a four-year tenure;. The president presides over the administration council.

The president is assisted by two vice-presidents and several professors elected within their respective academic departments. Members of the administration council choose the faculty representatives who make up the scientific council.

The university inherited the academic departments from the Faculty of Law of Paris. It currently houses five of them: one for private law and criminal sciences, one for public law and political science, one for Roman law and legal history, one for economics and management, and one for journalism and communication.

Campuses

The university has 18 campuses in Paris, 1 in the city of Melun to the south, and other campuses abroad.

Panthéon Centre

In 1753, Louis XV decided that a new building would be constructed for the Faculty of Law of Paris. Jacques-Germain Soufflot, alumnus of the Faculty who had become the architect of the King designed and supervised the construction. It took place from 1771 to 1773 and the new building opened in 1774.

Nowadays, the administration offices and postgraduate studies (master's and doctoral studies) are located in it. It is situated at 12 Place du Panthéon. It is registered among the national heritage sites of France.

Assas Centre

History under the Faculty of Law of Paris

The largest campus of Panthéon-Assas is located on Rue d'Assas and receives second-year to four-year law students. It was designed by Charles Lemaresquier, Alain le Normand, and François Carpentier to accommodate the growing number of students at the University of Paris. It was built between 1959 and 1963 on the former grounds of Société Marinoni. At the time of its inauguration, its main lecture theatre was the largest in France, with 1,700 seats.

Renovation and expansion in the 21st century

Centre Assas building, which was going under renovation between 2007 and 2017, has been completely redesigned and now hosts a modern learning center, created by the architect Alain Sarfati.

Cultural events

The Assas building has been hosting concerts of classical music for decades. Herbert von Karajan, Leonard Bernstein, Georg Solti, Elisabeth Schwarzkopf, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Martha Argerich, Gundula Janowitz, Christa Ludwig, Alfred Brendel, Arthur Rubinstein, Seiji Ozawa, Carlo Maria Giulini, or Samson François, among others, have performed in it. The 28th edition of the International Piano Competition for Outstanding Amateurs was held in it in 2017.

The scene at the Cairo airport from OSS 117: Cairo, Nest of Spies was filmed in its entrance hall.

Vaugirard Centre

The campus on the Rue de Vaugirard provides for first-year students. It is located in the chapel wing of the former Jesuit College of the Immaculate Conception, where Charles de Gaulle was a pupil; the chapel itself, dating from the 18th century, was transformed into a lecture hall in the 1980s. The structure is a national heritage site.

Sainte Barbe Centre

The Center of Roman Law and Legal History of Panthéon-Assas, hosting its research centers in legal history, is situated inside the Collège Sainte-Barbe, former school founded in 1460. The school was founded by Pierre Antoine Victor de Lanneau, teacher of religious studies, as a college of the University of Paris. Ignace de Loyola, Gustave Eiffel, Alfred Dreyfus among others were students there.

Research

Research centres

The university inherited the research centers from the Faculty of Law of Paris. Originally, the Faculty was not organized around research centers and professors were pursuing their research as part of Faculty in general. Hence, only newly emerging fields of research would have newly created institutes, whereas traditional subjects such as Roman law and legal history, private law in general and public law in general, would not necessarily have ones.

Currently, among the research centers at Panthéon-Assas, there are:

the Institute of Legal History, which is one of the largest research centers in Roman law and legal history in Europe. It hosts the Société d'histoire du droit (Legal History Society, for French legal historians), created in 1913 by professors of legal history at the Faculty of Law of Paris. Created in 2001 as such, the Institute of Legal History regroups the Centre de Documentation des Droits Antiques, created in 1962, the Centre d’Histoire des Institutions and the Centre d’Études d’Histoire Juridique, created in 1953. It is now also attached to the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and to the French National Archives.

the Centre for Administrative and Political Science Studies and Research (CERSA), also attached to the CNRS.

the Paris Centre in Law and Economics (CRED), created in 2014.

the Institute of Higher International Studies (IHEI), serving as the university's research center for international law and international relations, founded in 1921 by Paul Fauchille and Albert de Lapradelle, and considered one of Europe's finest.

the Paris Institute of Criminology and Criminal Law, founded in 1922, the oldest research center in criminal law of France.

the Paris Institute of Comparative Law, founded in 1931 by Henri Capitant and Henri Lévy-Ullmann.

the French Press Institute, founded in 1937 at the Faculty of Law of Paris by Boris Mirkine-Guetzevitch and Georges Bourdon (Secretary General of Unions of journalists). It is the first research center in journalism and media studies in France.

the Research Center in Business Law, created in 1945 by Joseph Hamel.

Each research center usually has one or several research or professional Master of Laws programs (LL.M.) attached to it.

Libraries

The campuses at Rue d'Assas, Rue de Vaugirard, and Melun host the university libraries, which are open to all the students. The university's research centres, institutes and reading rooms host twenty-two more specialized libraries. The total seating area of the university's libraries spans over 3,500 m2, and the university's collections gather over three hundred thousand volumes together.

Programs, schools and graduate schools

Undergraduate admissions

University–wide (law, economics, management, media...), the university has an acceptance rate of 20%. 22.79% of students accepted by the university having received highest honors ("mention très bien") in high school during the 2019 session (second university in France, behind Paris 1 with 22.84%).

In Law, within the department of Law, in 2021, the rate of "with honors" and "with highest honors" mentions among the admitted students was 95% (first among undergraduate programs in France).

Graduate programs (Master's or LL.M.s)

The four historical Master of Laws or LL.M. of the Faculty of Law of Paris were the Master’s in: 1° Roman Law and History of Law, 2° Private Law, 3° Public Law and, starting 1964, 4°Criminal Law. They are now rebranded as "Master 2" or "Parcours" (meaning a second-year "path", within a 2-year master's), under the following names:

LL.M. in History of Law, with the Institute of Legal History. Albert Rigaudière, member of the Académie des Inscriptions et des Belles Lettres, was its director.

LL.M. in General Private Law, with the Civil Law Research Center. According to Le Nouvel Observateur, the LL.M. "considered as a star-degree of the faculty, long been the pet of headhunters, it trains the virtuosi of the law". Pierre Raynaud was its director at the Faculty of Law of Paris before 1970 and at Panthéon-Assas afterwards.

LL.M. in Specialized Public Law. It was once directed by Yves Gaudemet, member of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques.

LL.M. in Criminal Law, with the Institute of Criminology and Criminal Law of Paris.

Originally exclusively linked to research studies and doctoral studies, the 5th-year LL.M. is now part of the joint Master's program and has become the norm in France for lawyers (including barristers). They have become quite selective and in competition with one another, among all the programs in France. Many LL.M. programs have been created at Panthéon-Assas since the Decree of 16 April 1974 authorizing the creation of more specialized LL.M.s than the 4 original ones, most notably the LL.M. in International Law and LL.M. in Comparative Law. Most of Panthéon-Assas' LL.M.s enjoy a similar strong reputation in France and Europe.

International programs

Panthéon-Assas offers international integrated undergraduate programs (Bachelor-Double maîtrise) with universities such as Oxford University, University College London, King's College London, University College Dublin. It offers international integrated postgraduate programs (LL.M.-Master 2) with some universities such as, on top of the latter ones, Boston University, Humboldt University of Berlin, LMU Munich, Sapienza University of Rome, University of Padua.

Reputation and rankings

Reputation

Assas has reputation of "excellence" in Law and has been called by Le Monde des grandes écoles a "symbol of Made in France excellence".

The French Research and Higher Education Evaluation Agency stated in 2013: "Paris II University presents itself as a university of excellence. This claim is not abusive. The university occupies – in Paris, in France, in the European Union and, more broadly, in the international scientific community – a prominent place. The university's reputation and notoriety has not been usurped. They are based on teaching and research activities as well as publications whose quality is recognized and celebrated in academia. And this beyond frontiers."

Rankings

Law

Panthéon-Assas University is often described as the "top law school in France". It is ranked first of France in law in the French Eduniversal rankings, Le Figaro ranking and Thotis ranking. It is the only French university and one of the two French higher education institution to make it into the GreenMetrics ranking.

Le Figaro Étudiant has published, for the first time in 2023, a ranking of the top 30 universities in France in law. The ranking takes into account several criteria, including the high school graduation results of admitted students, the number of applicants for undergraduate programs, post-graduation salary, the number of PhD degrees awarded and the number of alumni who become professors. Paris-Panthéon-Assas University has secured the first position in the ranking and stands out from other universities.

Most of the students admitted at the French National School for the Judiciary come from Panthéon-Assas, more than 40% in 2011 (candidates who graduated from Panthéon-Assas and then passed the entrance exam elsewhere are not included in that number).

Assas graduates have the highest salary of all French law schools.

Economics and business

The Assas undergraduate program in economics ranked fifth in 2020 by Eduniversal.

Assas was in 2011 the second best-ranked university in France (behind Paris-Dauphine University) for its master's degrees in the business fields. In 2016, it was ranked the first in France for international business, also first in decisional computing and second in finance and banking.

Journalism

Assas's CFJ diploma in journalism ranked third in France in 2022 by Le Figaro.

Political Science

According to the Thotis ranking of political science bachelor's degrees in 2025, the Assas bachelor's degree in political science is considered the second best in France, along with that of Université Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne.

Notable people from this faculty

This section is about notable faculty from Panthéon-Assas University (since 1971). The dates are the dates of professorship at the Faculty of Law of Paris and at University of Paris-Panthéon Assas.

Law reformers

Among the professors of Panthéon-Assas who reformed French or foreign laws, there are:

Jean Foyer, who was a close advisor of the Général de Gaulle, one of the main writers of the Constitution of the Fifth Republic, Minister of Justice under Charles de Gaulle and who put in motion important reforms of many parts of French Law (family, ownership and business, nationality, etc.).

Jean Carbonnier (1955–1976), who reformed huge parts of the French Civil Code in the 1960s and 1970s, and especially in family law.

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