WHETHER Oxford University had any plans to be part of a new campus in Paris is probably for the “canards” (University says ‘non’ to French campus claims: February 21).

What is true, however, is that Oxford has the largest department of French in the UK, with 31 permanent members of staff, many of whom have close links with French universities.

The example of the late Michael Sheringham, Marshal Foch professor from 2004 until his retirement in 2015 (he died in 2016), is instructive: Professor Sheringham held numerous visiting professorships in France, including at the College de France in 2007, and for two spells, in 2010 and 2012, he was a Camargo Foundation Fellow at Cassis, plus many other very happy times of residence in France.

Brexit won’t and shouldn’t close down what have been, and will continue to be, natural exchanges of ideas and imagination between Oxford’s French scholars and their colleagues across the Channel.

BRUCE ROSS-SMITH

Bowness Avenue, Headington