In Brief
Where do French expatriates go?
Slavery now a crime
Re-emphasizing the role of fathers
Foreign student numbers rising
Where do French expatriates go?
According to the magazine Français à l’étranger, two million of our fellow citizens have decided to leave their country, mainly for professional reasons. To further their career they favour the United States (260,000), United Kingdom (230,000), Germany (180,000) and Canada (140,000). As for Australia its appeal is growing (5,000). Where are the fewest? At the Vatican (15).
Slavery now a crime
France will now make sure that school textbooks and history classes cover this sensitive subject without ambiguity. The government is soon to set a date for mainland France to commemorate the abolition of slavery in 1848, following the example set by the overseas départements and territories (Guadeloupe, Réunion, Martinique, New Caledonia and French Polynesia) since 1983. This official commemoration will be a strong symbol of the process of acknowledgement and remembering long awaited by the peoples concerned. Unesco, through spokesman Doudou Diène, had already stressed its importance: "For it may well be here that not only are the responses to racial hatred, which has endured long after the material existence of the slave trade, in the process of being formed, but also all the riches of an intercultural dialogue looking toward the future".
Re-emphasizing the role of fathers
Determined to encourage men to become more involved in their role as fathers, in June 2001 the Minister for the Family, Ségolène Royal, introduced a series of measures directed at "the sharing of parental responsibility", still too often primarily borne by the mother. From 2002, paternity leave will be increased to seven working days compared to the present three on the birth of a child. This compares to three days’ paternity leave in Germany and Italy, eighteen days in Finland and forty days in Sweden.
To encourage divorced fathers to maintain contact with their children (80% of such children are currently in the care of their mother and a quarter of them no longer have any contact with their father), the minister announced a number of initiatives as much symbolic as practical. Schools will have to involve fathers in their children’s educational progress; children living in second families will benefit from reduced rate train tickets in order to visit the absent parent; social housing should take account of the need for a man living alone to accommodate his offspring regularly in favourable conditions conducive to dialogue; a paternity record (counterpart of the maternity record issued to mothers on the birth of a child), including a legal section and practical information, will also be issued to all fathers from the end of 2001 on, at a new "declaration of birth" ceremony.
Foreign student numbers rising
After years of decline and major efforts to remedy the situation, the number of foreign students in France increased in 2001, reaching a total of 173,863. The rise is the result of both the Chevènement Law of 1998, which made it easier to obtain student visas and permitted part-time work, but also the grant schemes and action programmes of the Edufrance agency, set up in 1998, to make the range of courses offered by French universities and graduate schools more widely known.
On the internet:
www.edufrance.com
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