OECD

After growth of only 1.1 percent last year, the French economy is set to grow 1.7 percent this year, its highest rate since 2011 but still lagging the euro zone average, predicts a report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the first since Emmanuel Macron's election as president.

Earlier this month the OECD published its latest Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) study, which attempts to measure the success of school education systems worldwide in an evaluation of the performance and knowledge of 15-year-old pupils in 72 countries. The study, which is produced every three years, found French schools to be amongst the most socially unequal, with pupils from poor backgrounds scoring significantly less than those from better-off families, a situation that the OECD desribed as a "two-tier" system that has resulted in "a human tragedy". Faïza Zerouala reports. 

A damning report commissioned by an independent evaluation body has found that schools in France exacerbate rather than reduce inequalities in society. The report, compiled from the work of more than 30 experts from different disciplines, says that the French education system has been failing many pupils for decades. In particular it singles out the failure of what are called education priority areas, a policy pursued by politicians of both the Left and Right. These special zones have been stigmatised and turned into educational ghettoes, says the report, shunned by better-off families and used mostly by children from disadvantaged backgrounds. Faïza Zerouala reports.

The charity Oxfam recently sounded the alarm about an explosion in wealth inequality across the world. Academic Patrick Savidan says that France, which once resisted this trend, is now in the same boat as other developed nations as the gap between wealthiest and poorest grows wider. Savidan, who co-founded a commission to monitor inequality, explains in an interview with Mediapart's Dan Israel that while the rich have long been getting richer in France, the latest development is that the poor are now getting poorer too.

In an interview with CNBC, Angel Gurria said France had introduced 'a number' of reforms but that these will require time to show results.

Two forecasts suggest that despite some economic progress both French consumers and businesses will 'wait and see' before spending or investing.

Political timetable offers opportunity for president to put in place an ambitious reform strategy on pensions, unemployment benefit and health.

France lacks both the mean and the will to properly tackle corporate bribery of foreign officials, say OECD anti-bribery pact monitors.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) this week published its annual study of results and trends of its member states’ educational systems. 'Education at a glance 2012' contains a number of findings that underline structural failings in the French education system, notably the fall in the numbers of 15-19 year-olds enrolled in full-time schooling and which the OECD described as “preoccupying”. The study provided added urgency to the French government’s ongoing series of nationwide consultative talks aimed at defining “the school of tomorrow”, ahead of sweeping reforms due to be put before parliament later this autumn. Lucie Delaporte reports.

The OECD backs France's call for the issue of jointly-guaranteed eurobonds and for the European Investment Bank to be given more resources.

France "may have entered a short, shallow recession", announced the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development on Monday, the smae day when the latest official French unemployment figures were also released revealing the total number of jobless of all categories had reached 4.8 million for the first time since 1999. Mediapart co-founder Laurent Mauduit argues that this sad state of affairs is the result of economic policies that feed speculation rather than fight it, part of a vicious circle that sees the multiplication of austerity measures that are strangling the economy, worsening rather than improving public deficits, and which have already created an exceptional level of social misery.

The OECD warns that the eurozone debt crisis may have pushed France into recession, with growth and unemployment figures set to miss targets.