About

The history of Paris-Panthéon-Assas University has spanned the centuries and is the bearer of values that the entire university community continues to honour today. The foundation of the identity and sense of belonging to the university are numerous: achievement in excellence, respect for individuals, freedom of thought, attachment to the institution and its traditions, and many more.

As the direct heir to the Paris Faculty of Law and Economics, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University is proud to maintain its prestigious heritage and to guarantee the continuity of the highly symbolic places where French law was born. With its innovative teaching and research of the highest level, today’s university pays tribute to all those who have helped make its history, while planning for the generations to come. It continues to bring law to life and to evolve, in complementarity with economic and management sciences, political science, and information and communication sciences.

The birth of the University of Paris and the teaching of law

Recognised by King Philip Augustus in the charter of January 15, 1200, then by the papal bull of Innocent III in 1215, confirmed by Gregory IX in 1231, the University of Paris was one of the very first universities to flourish in Europe and to influence medieval thought. The University of Paris comprised four faculties: decree (or canon law), medicine, theology and liberal arts.

The Faculty of Law in the 17^th and 18^th centuries

In 1679, with the edict of Saint-Germain, Louis XIV created the Faculty of Law, where, in addition to canon law, Roman law and French law were taught. This was the birth of French law. Following the expulsion of the Jesuits from the Collège de Lisieux in 1762, Trudaine, director of the Ponts et Chaussées and honorary doctor of the Faculty of Law, granted the construction of a new building for the Faculty on its site. Initially located on Saint-Jean de Beauvais street, the Faculty of Law moved in 1772 to the building designed by the architect Soufflot, located on the present-day Place du Panthéon, where the headquarters of the Paris-Panthéon-Assas University still stand today. Closed in 1793, the Faculty of Law reopened on 22 November 1805, after the promulgation of the Civil Code and the law of 13 March 1804, which created modern law schools.

The Faculty of Law of Paris

During the 19th century, the building on the Place du Panthéon quickly proved to be too small to accommodate the growing number of students, and law courses were taught in the Sorbonne. The Sorbonne church was even made available to one of the sections of the newly created Faculty of Law. The major and symbolic effort made by the Third Republic at the end of the 19th century to modernize the University of Paris resulted in the major architectural project of building the new Sorbonne by the architect Henri-Paul Nénot, on the exact site of the buildings, which had become dilapidated, of the Richelieu building. Jacques Lemercier’s church, the first Roman-style cupola in Paris, which houses Richelieu’s tomb by Girardon, a masterpiece of 18th-century statuary, will fortunately be preserved. The gigantic construction work and the complete redevelopment of this part of the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève street made it possible to double the surface area devoted to the Faculty of Law, by safeguarding the area currently delimited by the Place du Panthéon, the Cujas street, the Saint-Jacques street and the Soufflot street, whose new buildings, an extension of Soufflot’s original building, were inaugurated in 1900.

In the early 1960s, the modern centre built by the architect Le Maresquier on Assas street was able to accommodate an ever-increasing number of students. The Assas Centre was completely redesigned from 2009 to 2016 by the architect Alain Sarfati.

Following the events of May 1968, the Edgar Faure Orientation Law of November 12, 1968, profoundly disrupted the university system by putting an end to the existence of the Faculties. It sanctioned the splitting of the former University of Paris into 9 and then 13 new entities, including Paris-Panthéon-Assas University, which took the name of its two historical sites around the crossing of the Jardin du Luxembourg.

The university today

With 17 sites, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University covers 60,000 square meters. A remarkable architectural heritage which is also a signature of the university’s identity around the Montagne Sainte-Geneviève, defended by all the presidents of the university, as heir of the former Faculty of Law and Economics of Paris.

Concerned about the environment of the people and the aesthetic quality of the places of knowledge, Paris-Panthéon-Assas University has also thought out its locations to best meet the needs of the students, from the Vaugirard centres to the Panthéon, via the Assas Centre. The Melun campus offers the same quality of environment to all students who attend Paris-Panthéon-Assas University.