Taking evidence in November, Mrs Hodge questioned the value for money of an education centre in France bought by the Priory Federation of Academies.

BBC: Archway at The Priory Academy LSST

All these indicators show at best a stagnation of the position of France while other countries are progressing and that higher education and research are regarded as determinants of growth and competitiveness.

UNESCO: Education

But in France, secondary education, a responsibility of the central state, is meant also to have the job of forming French citizens.

ECONOMIST: Islam in France

"The fact that there's more carbon in Britain's peat moorlands than in all of the forests of Britain and France is very interesting, " said national park education officer Angharad Harris.

BBC: Gwynedd pupils dig deep to study the health of peat

Just 71% of Britain's late teenagers are in education, compared with 86% in France.

ECONOMIST: Standards in schools

It then delved more specifically into this movement's ominous implications for France including: its growing and destructive influence on the public education system, government policies and institutions, the economy and France 's tradition of secularism.

CENTERFORSECURITYPOLICY: Center co-sponsors international conference

Not so much about Mr Jospin's education though, as a graduate of the Ecole Nationale d'Administration, nursery of France's top civil servants and politicians (including six of the past eight prime ministers), he should have known better.

ECONOMIST: Lionel Jospin, escape artist

"These homes represented the creation of immense wealth at the turn of the century in the United States, the kind of wealth acquired through fundamental commodities like water, gold, oil and food, " said Katherine Malone-France, the National Trust for Historic Preservation's historic sites director of outreach, education and support.

CNN: 'Downton' in America: 6 big estates

After gaining independence from France in 1953, Cambodia made concerted efforts to promote universal access to education by the expanding the provision of pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary education across the country.

UNESCO: Room to Read: Local Language Publishing Programme