France's Social Elevator Stalls

Just wanted to briefly mention an issue from a few weeks back, when the association of grandes écoles rejected (reg. reqd.) the government's call to impose quotas for admitting students from modest backgrounds. Ironically, such quota systems are illegal in the US. However, France is well behind America in its efforts to promote affirmative action (currently only one grande école, Sciences Po, aggressively practices "positive discrimination"), and quotas are viewed as a necessary if imperfect means for increasing diversity both in the academy and among the professional class.  Whether President Sarkozy is committed to pushing these reforms through is unclear.  Though his government proposed the quota reforms in the first place, his new initiative to boost French universities' standings in national rankings will almost certainly take priority.  According to Valérie Pécresse, minister of higher education, the university system that is supposed to serve as a social elevator has become "stuck."  It appears that will remain so for the foreseeable future.