How long: usually 3 years (6 semesters), sometimes 4. You prepare the thesis within a doctoral school (école doctorale), and the head of the institution awards the doctorate after the defence.
Your status: with a contrat doctoral you are an employee on a 3-year contract; the minimum pay is €2,300 gross a month from 1 January 2026 (€2,200 in 2025). A CIFRE doctorate is done with a company, with the same minimum (€27,600 gross a year in 2026).
How to get in: a national master's degree or an equivalent engineering diploma. Enrolment is renewed every year.
Where to look: doctoral positions and calls are published on the websites of universities and their doctoral schools and on EURAXESS. Programmes in France in our database: France – 544 doctoral programmes (as of November 2026) »
Sources: Eurydice – national description of third-cycle (PhD) programmes (updated 27 November 2023); etudiant.gouv.fr – Le contrat doctoral. As of October 2026.
Sources: European Commission – Study in Europe (education.ec.europa.eu/study-in-europe), Eurostat, official national study and residence portals and authorities, Eurodesk, enic-naric.net, studentnews.eu. As of September 2026.
EN 
CS
DE
ES
FR
HU
IT
PL
PT
РУ
SK
TR
УК
AR
中文