The Pride of the Republic

In September, when schools re-opened, Nicolas Sarkozy made a trip to Marly-le-Roy, in the department of Yvelines, west of Paris. The school he visited is called an "internat d'excellence". We would call it a magnet school for gifted children. An "internat" is a boarding school, something that is still much more common in France than in the U.S.

Many of the students were children of immigrants. The president laid it on thick. But this is what we had to do in the public schools beginning way back in the late 60's when the demographics (to put it gently) began to change. Flatter them, pander to them, build up their self-esteem, and in so doing, rob them of any realistic self-analysis, deprive them of the intense satisfaction that only comes with achievement after hard work and self doubts, relieve them of all fear of failure, thus making the whole operation invalid from the outset. However, the topic of educational leveling is more complicated than that, and will wait for another time.

The JDD (Journal du Dimanche) had this account:

Nicolas Sarkozy wanted to show that he was not a "rich man's president". While visiting a new magnet school reserved for meritorious youngsters from under-privileged environments, he lauded the merits of this type of establishment. "This is a project that is dear to my heart," he assured them. For him it is about giving more opportunities to "children of the neighborhoods" since they are the "pride of the Republic". Created as part of Fadela Amara's plan called "espoirs banlieues" (hope for the suburbs), the magnet schools are just one government measure for developing social diversity in the preparatory classes for the "grandes écoles".

Note: The "grandes écoles" are schools of higher learning, equivalent to universities, but often considered to be academically superior. The graduates of these schools, who must pass a test in order to be accepted, are usually assured a position somewhere in the vast French network of government employment.

Fadela Amara, born in France, of Algerian origin, is Sarkozy's minister of urban policies, a position that is now under the Ministry of Labor, Social Relations and the Family.

In a speech strongly focussed on equality, the occupant of Elysée Palace proved himself to be very ambitious: "This is a place for all young people who want to pull themselves up, who want to succeed and who make an effort. We are going to give them an extra opportunity," promised the president. "You should be proud of your background," he declared to pupils most of whom were from immigrant families. "I want all this talk about poverty, fate, and giving up which associates origins and neighborhood with failure, to stop (...) A critical step in this process will take place here," he reassured them.

When schools re-opened, eleven magnet schools also opened their doors, in addition to the one in Sourdun (Seine-et-Marne), that has been operating for a year. Eventually the government plans to recruit up to 20,000 middle-school, high-school and university students. "Equality is not giving the same thing to everybody, it's giving more to those who have less", Nicolas Sarkozy, the ardent defender of meritocracy, said in summary. The 139 pupils of Marly-le-Roi, who came from Trappes, Villiers-le-Bel, Etampes, and other cities in the Parisian region, were chosen from 383 candidates.

The president also spoke of the ERS (establishments of social re-insertion), the first of which is to be inaugurated on Monday September 13. Young people, "who have experienced total failure in the regular educational system" will be sent there. About twenty of these ERS are to be created. Their mission will be to prepare these young persons for a "re-introduction into the educational system." If the experiment works, Nicolas Sarkozy is hoping that one ERS will be implanted into every school district. (...)

Note: If the students in these ERS have totally failed in the regular system, it is most likely because of their conduct (which, in turn, is related to a refusal to integrate into an alien culture, and to a low level of intelligence to begin with). In this case, the ERS is actually comparable to what we call a "boot camp" - a special school for teen-age thugs, truants, and general disrupters of order. Probably one IS needed in every school district.

The photo shows Sarkozy with a few of the lucky ones. Notice that they are all girls. This may be to show off that there is no gender bias, but more likely it is a reflection of the reality of inner-city schools. Most students are girls. The boys are in boot camps, in jail, or not in school at all. It is also possible that more girls are being born. I don't know if there are statistics on this, but there were many more girls than boys in my school district after 1968, and as time went on, the situation worsened. Girls filled most classes, with the boys in a tiny minority. At graduation, long lines of girls, short lines of boys, received their diplomas.

Note too, the blissful look on the face of the tall man in the background. Is he a politician? The school principal? No matter, he has the proud look of a new father. The red-haired woman, clearly moved by the occasion, looks like Fadela Amara.

One final comment: The French are clearly imitating us. We have managed to destroy our once-efficient public school system by implementing a curriculum based on liberal ideologies. Included in this vast chaotic failure are the magnet schools, that attracted as many bad students as good ones, and eventually wiped out the better ones. The predictable outcome of mixing the bad with the good is that the good will quickly disappear. Then everyone will be bad, and equality will have been achieved. That's how it's done, folks.