France's Culture Corps

Thirty teachers set out from Paris this week to serve in the secondary schools and universities of France's new-found friend, Red China. There they will fulfill a grand tradition, unblushingly defined by Prime Minister Georges Pompidou. "Of all countries," he says, "France is the one most deeply attached to exporting its language and culture."

Thinking in French. The main expression of the tradition is the historic and conscious effort poured into the 69 Lycees Franc,ais around the world, known for their scholastic excellence in the mold of the system that in France itself educates 1.5 million students be tween the ages of eleven and 18. Most outsiders, and perhaps many of the parents who pay lycee tuitions ranging from about $6 in Saarbruecken to $200 in Madrid, Istanbul and Mexico City, think of the overseas lycees as largely local institutions. Actually they are supported, at a cost of $28 million a year, plus 14,500 teachers drained at great sacrifice from the internal French school system, by the Cultural Affairs Department of the Foreign Ministry. The candid purpose is to create foreigners--current enrollment is 65,982--who think in French and like Frenchmen.

Compared to almost $300 million currently being spent by the U.S. on Peace Corps, USIA and cultural exchange programs, France seems to be getting more than her money's worth. Even behind the Iron Curtain--in Bulgaria, Poland and North Viet Nam--French teachers are vigorously shaping minds to the French way of thought. In Hanoi, the Lycee Albert Sarraut has never closed its doors. Rome's Lycee Chateaubriand, considered the Ivy

League of lycees by the international set, is so hard to get into that it is booked up five years in advance. There are few Iranian diplomats who have not attended the Lycee Razi in Teheran; most of them have gone on to universities in France. The Lycee Francais in New York receives no subsidy from the French government, operates as a private elementary and high school--but it adheres to the official French curriculum, and 24 of its 50 teachers are furnished by the Foreign Ministry.

Boning for Bachots. Whether in London or Sao Paulo, a lycee education is a demanding, no-nonsense process. Greek, Latin and logic, mathematics and a firm grounding in scientific studies are standard elements in the curriculum. French literature is its very backbone. And wherever the lycee, its students will be working from the same textbooks, will bone up for the same exams at the same time of the year. The questions for the bachot, the dreaded baccalaureate examination that determines who shall-and who shall not--be eligible for university entrance, are formulated in Paris and given simultaneously all over the world.*

The lycee system has been accused of preparing students for nothing but rendering them apt at everything. The accusation is doubtless as unfair as the rewards are solid. Says Roland Falletaz, a teacher in Rome: "Most of our graduates go on to higher education and become engineers, doctors, diplomats, professors and journalists. This future alone justifies any of the expenses France undertakes. Is there a nobler or more disinterested aim than to educate the cadres, the elites of tomorrow?"

*Last month's scandal of the leaked bachot questions (TiME, July 10) was solved last week when an Education Ministry clerk confessed to stealing them for her ami, who passed them on to friends.

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