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The aim of this text is to pin down two aspects of the recent developments in the French scientific system. The first aspect, specific to France, is the hybrid nature of its two main institutions, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) and the university. Analysis of the French publications in the natural sciences shows that the process of hybridization between higher education establishments (universities and the French Écoles) and the CNRS is an ongoing phenomenon, something that is reflected in the growing number of article signatures mentioning several organizations. This increasingly integrated entity, which we have called here “academic research”, is roughly equivalent to the university systems of other countries. The hybridization of the CNRS and the university thus brings France closer to an “international” model founded on the university. The second aspect of these developments, shared with the scientific system of most industrialized countries, is the growing involvement of academic research in collaboration with other sites of scientific production, among which business, which tends to favor more “applied” research.