Interest in La Littérature Wanes among French youth
As a new report shows that only 20 percent of French students are
majoring in literature (compared to 50 percent of the previous
generation), Xavier Darcos, the Minister of Education in France is
worried that “France is in danger of becoming a nation of unemployed
sociologists unable to master speech or thought.”
Young people today are studying more “practical” fields such as
sociology and economics in order to secure a well-paid place in
France’s precarious job market.
But Darcos’ plan to revive interest in the French classics is seen by
some as a failure:
Traditionalists believe that the initiative is already doomed
because of the widely held view among the brightest students that
literary studies are a soft option for no-hopers. This trend is an
affront to the rich literary heritage that has produced writers such
as Molière, Voltaire and Victor Hugo, they say. There is also
resentment that intellectual literati are losing their privileged
status in Gallic society that they say is being corrupted by
television, the internet and globalisation.
Sounds pretty grim. But the teachers of France are not surprised -
according to Jean-François Guennoc, a lecturer at Paris University:
“The average is 10 to 12 mistakes but I’ve counted up to 50 in a degree
paper.”
Quelle horreur!
