Nantes Université Scholarship 2027 to Study for FREE in FRANCE
€1,200 a month, for up to three years, to do a Master’s in France — funded by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs itself. That’s the Eiffel Excellence Scholarship at Nantes Université. The twist, as of the moment this is being written: the application portal is officially out of service, while the clock to the deadline is already running. Welcome to French bureaucracy, where even the prestige scholarships come with a plot twist.
Here’s the thing nobody tells you up front: this isn’t one application, it’s two — a separate individual admission file alongside the scholarship request — and depending on which Master’s you want, you’re not even filling out the same form as everyone else. Nantes splits its Eiffel applications across eight different faculty-specific links. Submit through the wrong one and nobody’s going to gently redirect you; your file just sits with the wrong reviewers.
This guide walks through what the money actually covers, who qualifies (the age cutoff is oddly specific — born after 31 March 1997), the exact document list, which application link belongs to your field, and the deadline Nantes quietly set earlier than the one Campus France advertises nationally.
Your Nantes Eiffel application roadmap
01 A scholarship designed to produce future decision-makers, not just graduates
Eiffel isn’t a generic “study in France” grant — it’s a talent-recruitment tool built by the French Ministry for Europe and Foreign Affairs and run through Campus France, aimed squarely at students considered likely to become decision-makers in the public or private sector back home. That framing matters: your application isn’t just assessed on grades, it’s assessed on trajectory.
At Nantes specifically, you’re not applying to “the university” in the abstract — you’re applying to one of eight schools or faculties, each running its own review and its own online form. That’s unusual. Most scholarship schemes give you a single front door. Nantes gives you eight, and expects you to already know which one is yours.
02 How long it lasts, and what the stipend actually buys
Nantes’s own page tells you the duration in precise detail but, oddly, never states the euro amount. We cross-checked that figure against several other French universities’ official Eiffel pages for the same 2027 cycle, and they agree: €1,200 a month at Master’s level, set since January 2026 and unchanged for 2027.
| Your situation | Maximum funded duration |
|---|---|
| Enrolling directly in Master 2 | 12 months |
| Enrolling in Master 1 (covers both years) | 24 months |
| Engineering degree (diplôme d’ingénieur) | 36 months |
Here’s the detail that trips people up: Eiffel does not pay your tuition fees. The €1,200 is a living allowance, full stop. Before you accept a place, check what Nantes actually charges for your specific Master’s — EU/international tuition at French public universities is usually modest, but “usually modest” and “zero” are not the same thing, and Eiffel covers neither your fees nor your flight by default.
03 Do the numbers actually line up for you?
| Requirement | What Nantes actually asks for |
|---|---|
| Nationality | Non-French. Dual nationals holding French citizenship, even alongside another passport, are not eligible. |
| Age | 29 or younger at submission — meaning born after 31 March 1997. |
| Current location | Must be residing abroad. Already studying in France? You’re disqualified from this round. |
| Other funding | Must not hold any other French government scholarship at the time of application. |
| Application history | Must be a first-time Eiffel applicant. If Campus France rejected you in a previous selection round, you cannot reapply — not even through a different university. |
| French level | Generally DELF B2 (minimum 65/100) or TCF Level 4 (B2) with at least 14/20 on the written section. Some programmes demand C1 — check yours specifically. Waived for applicants from officially French-speaking countries, or those schooled in French through a recognized secondary system. |
That rejected-once-means-never-again rule is worth sitting with for a second. Most scholarships let you dust yourself off and try again next cycle. Eiffel doesn’t — a previous “no” from Campus France follows you, whichever French university you apply through next. If you’ve already been turned down for Eiffel before, this round isn’t for you.
04 Find your faculty — and its own application link
This is the single most important structural fact about applying to Eiffel at Nantes: there is no universal “apply here” button. Eight schools and faculties each run their own eligible-programme list and their own online form. Submit via the wrong one and there’s no indication your file gets rerouted — it just sits with reviewers who aren’t expecting it.
| Faculty / school | Example fields covered | Apply here |
|---|---|---|
| UFR Droit et Sciences Politiques | Business law, maritime law, criminal law, EU and international law, public law, legal history (all French-taught) | Law & Political Science form |
| IAE Nantes | Environmental/energy economics, applied econometrics, maritime finance and logistics, consulting (French-taught) | IAE Nantes form |
| UFR Sciences et Techniques | Biology/health, chemistry, computer science, mathematics, physics, environmental management, bioinformatics — several taught partly or fully in English | Sciences & Technology form |
| Polytech Nantes | Engineering degrees (IT, electronics, materials, thermal/energy, civil engineering, electrical power, process engineering) — French-taught | Polytech Nantes form |
| UFR Lettres et Langages | French literature (C2 French required), French as a foreign language teaching (C1 French required) | Letters & History form |
| IGARUN (Geography & Planning) | Coastal geomatics and risk, coastal planning, territorial governance, urban planning | IGARUN form |
| UFR Pharmacie | Biology/health — Graduate Programme M4R (regenerative medicine) | Pharmacy form |
| UFR Histoire | Heritage studies, archaeology, international history and geopolitics, public history | History form (shared with Letters) |
This table covers categories, not the complete programme list — each faculty’s section on Nantes’s own page names the specific Master’s tracks (and whether they’re taught in French, English, or a mix). Nantes also flagged that the final list of eligible programmes for 2027 wouldn’t be confirmed until mid-October — if you’re reading this close to that window, double-check your exact programme is still on the list before you invest time in a research statement.
05 The document that most applicants underestimate
Six items, and one of them is marked “MANDATORY” in capital letters on the brochure itself — your class ranking. Not your GPA. Your actual numeric rank within your graduating cohort, plus how many students were in it.
- Photocopy of your ID — showing name, date of birth and passport number.
- CV — one to two pages maximum, in French or English.
- Diplomas and class ranking — copies of your most recent degrees with dates, specialization and honours, plus any document proving your standing: class rank, cohort size, distinctions.
- Language certificate — your DELF/TCF result, if your programme requires one. Skip this if you’re exempt under the French-speaking-country rule.
- Class rank (again, explicitly mandatory) and transcripts from your last three years — covering both French and international academic experience if you have both.
- Professional project statement — one to two pages, French or English, explaining why France (specifically, versus continuing your studies elsewhere) and what career you’re building toward. An outside reference — from an employer, for instance — can strengthen this.
Anything not already in French or English needs an official translation. And if your undergraduate institution doesn’t formally rank students — plenty don’t — start that conversation with your registrar now, not the week before the deadline. Producing an official class-rank letter from scratch takes longer than you’d think.
06 How to apply — and the second application nobody warns you about
Here’s the part buried in a bold warning box on Nantes’s own page: the Eiffel scholarship request is NOT your university admission. You must submit a separate, parallel “hors échange” individual admission application. Two files, two processes, both required.
- Read the student rulebook and confirm you’re eligible. Link available in step 2 below:
- Confirm your programme is on the eligible list. The final 2027 list is published mid-October on Nantes’s official Eiffel – Master page — if your chosen Master’s isn’t there, no amount of a brilliant application fixes that.
- Prepare your documents while the portal is down. As of this writing, Nantes’s application link isn’t live. Use the wait productively — the class-rank letter and recommendation materials take the longest.
- Submit through your faculty’s specific link (see the table above) once it reopens, AND submit your separate “hors échange” individual admission file. Nantes’s international relations office centralizes all Eiffel requests, forwards eligible files to faculty reviewers, then sends supported files on to Campus France.
07 Four traps that have nothing to do with how good your application is
1. Trusting the date on Campus France’s own site. Nantes says it outright: its internal deadline is different from — and earlier than — the one Campus France publishes. Use Nantes’s date, not the national one, for anything you submit here.
2. Filling out the wrong faculty’s form. Eight separate links, no obvious redirect if you pick wrong. Confirm your programme against the table above before you type a single answer.
3. Only submitting the Eiffel request. Without the parallel “hors échange” admission application, your file is incomplete no matter how strong your scholarship case is.
4. Assuming a past Eiffel rejection doesn’t count against you here. It does — a previous “no” from Campus France, through any French university, rules you out this time.
08 Quick-fire questions
The application portal says it’s down. Should I wait to prepare anything?
No — keep preparing. A downed portal doesn’t pause your deadline, and the slowest items (class-rank documentation, recommendation support, translated transcripts) are exactly the things you should be sorting out right now, while you’re waiting rather than scrambling.
Can I apply to Eiffel at Nantes and another French university in the same cycle?
Nantes’s page specifies you must apply exclusively to Nantes Université for this particular route. If you’re weighing multiple French universities, that’s a decision to make before you commit your documents here, not after.
My university doesn’t rank students numerically. Am I disqualified?
Nantes’s checklist asks for class ranking “and/or” other evidence of academic excellence — cohort size, distinctions, honours. If a numeric rank genuinely doesn’t exist at your institution, the strongest substitute is an official letter from your registrar explaining that, alongside whatever standing evidence (honours, top-decile language, awards) you do have.
Does Eiffel cover my tuition fees?
No. The €1,200 monthly allowance is a living stipend, not a tuition waiver. Confirm the actual fee for your chosen Master’s at Nantes separately before you budget around this scholarship.
09 The deadline Nantes set quietly ahead of everyone else
12 November 2026 — the deadline to submit your file to Nantes Université for the Master’s track. Campus France’s own national site lists a different, later date, but Nantes is explicit: for this institution, its own date governs.
Results come from Campus France, by email, starting the week of 12 April 2027 — meaning a roughly five-month gap between submission and knowing. Given the portal’s current downtime, the real-world planning window is tighter than it looks on paper: find your faculty’s form, confirm your programme made the final October list, and have your class-rank documentation moving before you need it, not after the portal reopens and the clock is visibly ticking.