Cultural fun times. that's sarcastic. you should keep reading.

Hi hello,
It’s early in the morning and I should leave for class soon but exciting things have finally been se derouling as these people would say.
So, as some of you might have seen around the news since the proportions are now reaching an epic level – seriously -, the university strike in France is stillllllllllllllll going on. This makes since the beginning of this semester. Some university students are yet to have classes in their second semester. Needless to say, if I were that kid who was supposed to be taking exams to determine my life long position in society, I’d be peeing my pants a little. In France, students have to take a test that laughs in the SATs face, both in importance and depth of knowledge. Not to knock the SATs, but they happen at the end of high school – period - and if you do poorly, for the most part, it doesn’t bring shame on the family or determine if you deserve to be educated further. There is far more to the French system about which we have received hours and hours and hours of lecture so let us skip to the more interesting stuff.
Historically, French education is completely independent of government. Hypothetically, there is to be no political discussion on campus, political groups, and the government doesn’t interfere in the goings on. This is roughly a millennial old system. 900 years give or take or give and give. Now Sarkozy is a little over that. Instead of equal state funding across the board, in the area of research and professor/researchers, the output of data and results will determine levels of funding. This will then lead to universities linking to private companies for economic reasons, and this will create a hierarchy, and some prof/researchers will clearly have more resources time/less stress to pump out results than others. Also, many fields of science take time to complete (social sciences etc) so people can’t just pump out solid results. Oh. And education isn’t going to be FREE anymore.

All hell has kind of broken loose. The strike of students and prof/researchers has elevated from crankyness and refusal to go to class to a stealing of all chairs in the buildings to constructing all those chairs in front of every single entrance. (My host, a secretary at the uni, whose work doesn’t strike, enters via windows. No BS.)

Another thousand year old separation of education and government sets the campus as a sanctuary. Basically if you’re looking for your friendly neighborhood drug dealer or your illegal immigrants, check out your local campus because the police presence isn’t allowed without permission from the president of the school. So recently, the president has announced that there will be police intervention to put an end of the blockage. This is big. Real real big.

Alright – have to get going. To be continued. Just a cultural fun fact. And by fun I mean I may be digging out my tear gas mask.

By for nowwwwww