THE FRENCH-AMERICAN FOUNDATION WEEKLY BRIEF

France

The French government has persuaded France’s elite universities—the Grandes Écoles—to sign on to a charter committing them to increase the number of scholarship students to 30 percent of the student body. If the schools do not reach the goal by 2012, they risk losing state financing. French Higher Education Minister Valérie Pécresse announced that she would be assembling a group of experts to create a “social performance” index on which financial allotments to the schools would be determined. According to the Independent, President Sarkozy—who did not attend a Grande École—also wanted to make more students eligible for state aid to attend the expensive preparatory classes that are often an unofficial pre-requisite for admission to the Grandes Écoles. 

On Monday, June 28, the Orange-France Télécom-Nouvel Observateur investing partnership withdrew its bid to purchase ailing newspaper Le Monde after 91% of the paper’s editors voted in favor of an opposing bidding group headed by Pierre Bergé, Xavier Niel and Matthieu Pigasse. Later in the day the paper’s board voted to approve the so-called “BNP” offer. In an article on President Sarkozy’s media influence, Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail reported that several days prior, President Sarkozy had threatened to “revoke government support for the paper” if it picked the left-leaning BNP trio. Meanwhile, the Irish Times mused on the eclectic trio of investors, wondering if their bid was a ploy to gain political influence, an attempt to enhance their public profiles, or merely a smart business investment.

On Monday, June 28, the trial against Manuel Noriega began in Paris, where the former Panamanian dictator was extradited from the United States on charges that he laundered Colombian drug money by stowing it in French bank accounts (later using the money to buy luxury apartments in Paris). French prosecutors were seeking the maximum 10-year sentence for Noriega, who was already convicted in absentia in 1999. Noriega has denied the charges, blaming a French and U.S. conspiracy, and his lawyers have decried his treatment in France, complaining that “he is living in France just as a common shoplifter would.” While previously incarcerated in Florida, Noriega lived in a 2-bedroom, 250 square-foot prison cell equipped with a TV, exercise bike and telephone, according to The Globe and Mail.

Citing economic considerations, on Tuesday, June 29, the National Assembly suspended a program allowing French students free attendance to French high schools in foreign countries. The program was set up by Sarkozy in 2007, and its cost has risen from 52.5 million euros when it was announced in 2007 to a predicted 101 million Euros in 2010, according to Les Echos. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates that the program would cost approximately 700 million Euros annually if it were extended to elementary and middle schools, as originally proposed.