Skul Daze

Some protestors are far-left agitators acting in solidarity with the trade unions who are striking against pension reform; others are fantasists, calling on the French for another "May 1968" and "an end to capitalism." But some fear that President Nicolas Sarkozy's plans to improve France's higher education system will mean the appearance of "US-style" universities.

What do the French have to fear from this?

(As if there's something wrong with the most successful University system in the world .) EUROSOC concludes:

There is a problem with French universities. It is that they are not universities, in the understood sense of the term.

And this does not entirely mean an 'Anglo-Saxon' sense of the term. According to research by the Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, not a single French university makes it into the world's top 40 universities. Naturally, the French fiercely dispute the league table produced by the Chinese each year, which gives the top places to well-endowed American and prestigious British colleges

Which is the entire point behind the reform scheme. It's also how you end up with a reaction like this:

there is a much more profound and serious problem you did not touch upon concerning the French university system: the total impunity for professors, et al. French departments are like a mafia family or a medieval clan comprised of the director and his vassals, and no matter what lack of ethics on a personal or professional level, they are untouchable.

For all their lovely talk on guaranteeing higher education for all, I'd like to see the French come up with a shred of integrity to start reforming the foul internal contamination of their system concerning those very people who are supposed to serve students and higher learning.