Reform of French University System Moves a Small Step Forward. (July 12, 2007)

    Prior to his election to the French Presidency on May 6, Nicholas Sarkozy told an audience: "In the race against Stanford, Cambridge or Harvard, French universities run with their laces tied together and a backpack full of stones," and gave the French public that he intended to change that.

In his first step to attempt what many suggest will be the equivalent of a Labour of Hercules M Sarkozy on July 4 had his cabinet adopt a bill that would make France's 85 public universities much more independent, largely freeing them from the current centralized state control.

The French president also restated his intention to award the universities an extra €5 billion (A$8 billion) over the next five years; that, and on most accounts considerably more, will be needed to get the sector's shoelaces untied and the stone removed from the their backpacks.

If the promise becomes near fulfillment, French universities may in time come to suffer significantly less interference from their political masters than Australia's Coalition government is foisting on our tertiary sector.

 And broader university reform are in the offing, says prime minister François Fillon, who has described the future of French universities as the most important item on his domestic agenda.