An image from the 1968 protests

France may have exited the recession but in recent years its higher education system has continued to stagnate. A multicultural republic, France is supposed to be a meritocracy, but its universities have showed a very different picture. It’s almost as though the student protests of May 1968 hadn’t taken place. Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité? Pah!

The dual higher education system in France is based on “Universités” and “Grandes Ecoles”. French universities have free access and are obliged to take all students holding a baccalauréat, whilst the smaller grandes écoles work outside of this system and are highly competitive – they admit only 6% of all high school leavers.  In theory, anyone with the right exam results can attend the prestigious establishments, however most students actually spend two years meticulously preparing for the rigorous entrance tests.

These élite institutions produce the crème de la crème of France’s civil servants, politicians and business leaders. And unsurprisingly most of the students at the grandes écoles are from the upper or middle classes  – those from disadvantaged backgrounds simply do not have the funds to undertake two years of exam preparation. Thus the élite remain the élite and segregation across business, politics and society is perpetuated.

Nicolas Sarkozy’s reforms of the higher education system have been making waves for almost a year now, with strikes taking place in public universities to protest the president’s proposed changes. Universities are overcroweded, underfunded and Sarkozy’s changes aim to transform them into competitive, commercially-successful institutions.

Reforms aim to promote diversity

And Sarkozy has taken aim at the very establishments which educated so many of his government cronies – the grandes écoles. Sarkozy has proposed changes to their entrance procedures; setting a target of admitting 30% of the chosen few from poorer backgrounds. This measure is designed to promote racial and social diversity, ensuring that the grandes écoles become the meritorcratic establishments that they claim to be.

Despite objections from those running the institutions, who suggested that such reforms would lead to a lowering of academic standards, the grandes écoles have now finally promised to aim to admit this quota by 2012. Furthermore they will re-examine the entrance tests to ensure that they aren’t geared towards certain social strata and will participate in a programme creating partnerships with high schools in poor areas.

In Paris, Sciences Po, one of the political grandes écoles has set the pace, offering scholarships to students receiving government grants.The institution has also set up schemes with schools in some of the most difficult districts in the city’s suburbs, in order to attract students from disadvantaged backgrounds.

Changes in the grandes écoles are essential if France is to break with tradition and move on from the current situation of disharmonious division between the haves and have-nots. The élitism that these establishments perpetuate can only serve to alienate sections of society that already feel excluded.