The EconomistFebruary 10th 2018 Europe 4912 tion with Emmanuel Macron on defence
and migration, an increased German con-
tribution to the EU budget, progress to-
wards increased powers for the European
Parliament and the transformation of the
European Stability Mechanism (a crisis
firewall set up in 2012) into a permanent
“European Monetary Fund”. Still, the text
is vague and missesout important subjects
like completing banking union. The pro-
posals are an opening to Mr Macron, but at
this stage little more.
The second overture to the SPD base is
the proposed distribution of cabinet jobs.
The party takes both the powerful finance
ministry—essential for influence over EU
policy—and keeps the foreign and labour
ministries. That is a big concession from
the CDU, which also cedes the interior
ministry to the CSU’s Horst Seehofer. But
anyone hoping to see a fiery federalist in
Wolfgang Schäuble’s old job will be disap-
pointed. Olaf Scholz, the mayor of Ham-
burg and the likely pick, is a cautious cen-
trist close in instinct to Mrs Merkel.
Meanwhile Martin Schulz, who on Febru-
ary 7th announced his resignation asSPD
leader, is tipped for the foreign ministry.
If the SPD votes “yes”, the new govern-
ment should be in place before Easter. But
the sense of a transition will linger. There
will be more open disagreement between
the ruling parties and a review of progress
two years in (perhaps the moment for an
early election). The far-right Alternative for
Germany will be the largest opposition
party in the Bundestag. Ambitious rivals
are breathing down the necks of party
leaders. As much as it points to Germany’s
next steps, the coalition deal is the artefact
of a passingpolitical era. 7
I
T WAS by imperial decree that Napoleon
founded the French baccalauréat, the
country’s school-leaving exam, in 1808. To
this day, some 700,000 pupils still take the
bac, the great majority of the annual age
cohort. It has become the badge of excel-
lence for a French lycéesystem that offers a
model of globally standardised education,
including to over 900 lycéeswith a total of
330,000 pupils abroad. Yet President Em-
manuel Macron is now about to announce
the most radical overhaul of the exam for
over half a century. Why?
Despite spending as much on second-
ary schooling as otherOECD countries,
France no longer achieves correspondingresults. Between 2003 and 2012, perfor-
mance in international maths tests fell
compared with other countries. The real
shock was an international study of read-
ing known asPIRLS, published in 2017, in
which French pupils lagged in 34th posi-
tion, behind those in Spain, Portugal and It-
aly. Their level had dropped by 14 points
since 2001. The bacis an entrance ticket to
university, yet too many students drop out
once they get there. Fully 70% of under-
graduates, saysthe ministry, fail to com-
plete their degree in three years.
On February 14th Jean-Michel Blan-
quer, the education minister and a former
director ofESSEC, a top French business
school, is due to unveil his reform plans for
the bac. The broad contours emerged in a
report he commissioned last month. The
bac, it said, is too complex, too focused on a
single series of exams in the final school
year, covers too manysubjects and does
not allow for enough specialisation. Pupils
must study an impressively wide range of
subjects: science buffs have to study
French literature and philosophy, and even
the mostpoetically minded must grapple
with science. The flipside is that this pre-
cludes depth, of the sortthat arguably bet-
ter prepares pupils for higher education.
Instead, the diploma will be reorgan-
ised around a “major” of four big exams in
the final year, down from between ten and
15 currently. Two choices will be special-
isms that go into far greater depth, counting
for a quarter of the final bacgrade, and to
be examined earlier in the final year. Two
other exams will remain compulsory for
all: a written philosophy paper, naturally,
and—probably—an oral presentation of a
school project. French literature will re-
main a compulsory exam in the penulti-
mate year of the bac, as it is today. Fully
40% of the final grade is expected to de-
pend on continuous assessment during
the lasttwo years of school.
The new French bac, which will be
awarded for the first time in 2021, will look
more like the school-leaving exam in other
European countries, where continuous as-
sessment represents a big chunk of the fi-
nal grade, and subject specialism, such as
for British A-levels, is common. In France,
though, the shake-up may well create an
uproar. Many in the teaching profession
fear that continuous assessment will kill
the prized national standard, and in effect
bring in a two-tierbac, with more presti-
gious grades being awarded by top teach-
ers in top schools, rather than by national
markers. Teachers of subjects that may be-
come optional are worried about their fu-
ture. Unions are threatening strikes. So far,
Mr Macron has largely avoided big street
protests as he has set about modernising
France. Education reform, not to mention a
looming battle over civil-service numbers,
could be the beginning of a much trickier
period for him. 7FranceBack to bac
PARIS
Reforms to the beloved baccalauréatT
HE TOPIC was “A Future Russia”. The
location, a modest House of Youth in
Vladimir, a provincial city some 190km
east of Moscow. The lecturer was Ksenia
Sobchak, a 36-year-old presidential candi-
date who made her fortune as an “it” girl
and a TV reality-show star. Wearing a
sharp suit and gold-heeled stilettos, Ms
Sobchak presented a rich and glamorous
model of that future. The local university,
she told the audience, was lagging behind
even the lowliestin California. Russia
should compete in biotech rather than mis-
siles. Slipping into management-speak,
she said the government should be judged
on “key performance indicators”.
The audience seemed unconvinced,
but this is the role the Kremlin has scripted
for Ms Sobchak as an approved sparring
partner for Vladimir Putin, Russia’s presi-
dent, at the election due on March 18th.
More importantly, she is a spoiler for
Alexei Navalny, the only viable challenger,
but banned from the contest. Mr Navalny
built his campaign on a personal and gen-
erational confrontation with Mr Putin and
has now called for a boycott of the elec-
tion. Ms Sobchak’s campaign “against
everyone” subverts his message and di-
rects young people to the ballot box.
As an opposition figure, she represents
no threat. Her recognition rating is 95% (be-
cause of her starring role in a raunchy reali-
ty show called Dom-2), but few view her
favourably. She seems to tick all the boxes
of popular prejudice about Russia’s liberalRussia’s oppositionThe approved
challenger
MOSCOW
Ksenia Sobchak is not giving Vladimir
Putin a run for his money