A Talk by François Weil
This talk examines how education has become a central battleground in contemporary French politics. François Weil traces the tension between France’s republican ideal of secular, meritocratic schooling and persistent inequalities of class, geography, and immigration background. He situates these issues within wider currents of populism, institutional mistrust, and state centralization, and asks what these struggles reveal about the future of the republican model and French identity.
A French historian of the U.S., François Weil served as President of EHESS, rector of the Academy and Chancellor of the Universities of Paris, senior advisor to the Prime Minister for Education, Higher Education, and Research, and chief of staff of the Minister of Education and Higher Education. He is now a Councillor of State. Among his books are A History of New York (Columbia UP, 2004) and Family Trees. A History of Genealogy in America (Harvard UP, 2013).
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