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The law of August 10, 2007 related to the “Freedoms and Responsibilities of Universities” (LRU) comes after twenty-five years of massification of access to higher education. Its aim was to make the French university more attractive, to make its governance more efficient and to improve the international visibility of its research. Although it may have appeared as an important break in the history of the French higher education and research system, the authors stress that it also intervenes in a double continuity. It is linked both to the principles of the new public management and to the continuum of reforms ranging from the LOLF to the provisions of the 2006 program law for research. It is also part of the older and more progressive movement of the universities, their “long march” towards greater autonomy and more responsibility, symbolized by various measures taken in the period 1990-2000. Based on the work of the Inspectorate General of the Administration of National Education and Research conducted from 2008 to the present day and on the experience gained in their previous positions, the authors draw up an assessment of the new economic model, of the related professionalisation of the services in terms of management and of the changes in the governance of the governing bodies.