Minister of National Education Xavier Darcos of France

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France's Education Minister Xavier Darcos said in an interview with Parisien Dimanche newspaper on Sunday he wanted the French baccalaureate, the country's high school diploma, to be "valued" by students.

Darcos is keen that France learns to speak better English.

Darcos was born on 14 July 1947 in Limoges to Jean-Gabriel Darcos and Anne-Marie Banvillet.

Xavier Darcos said it was a handicap to speak poor English.

End result: most primary kids, at least here in French Guiana, have NO English! Many teachers are too busy to take on primary classes as well! So, while this latest is an idea that looks great on paper, it doesnt mean it will amount to something! Not to mention that Darcos has really been a huge disappointment here as he refused to meet with the local and departmental representatives to resolve our very special problems.

In thinly veiled criticism of the Bush administration, French Development Minister Xavier Darcos said Washington must honor the spirit of a multilateral trade commitment made in 2001 giving poor countries access to cheap generic drugs.

offering them to everyone right here.

Minister Darcos had invited to the meeting all the institutions and personalities involved in the transmission of the memory of the Shoah.

During the 2008-2009 school year there will be added emphasis on French and Mathematics as academic subjects, in an effort to counter what Education Minister Xavier Darcos has called the continued degradation of the performance levels in our education system.

Also, when a teacher or substitute teacher is absent, or if a teacher goes on strike, Xavier Darcos said that it would be the states responsibility to organize and finance a centre to receive schoolchildren in every town, at least at the primary school level.

In response, Xavier Darcos said the harsh economic context is the proof of the necessity of this decision.

Darcos said he had conferred with Sarkozy and that both agreed this reform project had become a focal point for social movements, and risked snowballing into a political showdown with the government.

Hissed at by the grammar school pupils, shouted down by primary school teachers and criticised by comprehensive school people, Xavier Darcos is in a tight spot.

Education Minister Xavier Darcos has spelled out the number of jobs to be cut in 2009.

As concerns the 2009-2010 school year, Xavier Darcos has not yet spelled out how many of the job losses will concern teachers and how many will concern other school staff.

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French Education minister Xavier Darcos has admitted the secret to the French success is speaking EnglishFor generations, the French have fiercely guarded their language against the horreurs anglais.

Mr Darcos said he wanted to make it easier for all French students to learn English, saying that 'while well-off families pay for study sessions abroad, I'm offering them to everyone right here.

Darcos has a university teaching diploma and is holder of a doctorate in Latin studies from the University of Bordeaux and a state doctorate in letters and humanities.

Darcos was named deputy mayor of Prigueux.

Darcos was elected mayor of Prigueux in 1997 and re-elected in 2001 and 2005.

Ambassador Darcos took up his post on 3 October 2005.

This might come as something of a surprise to the members of the august Acadmie Franaise and to the rest of their countrymen or, more precisely, to their children, but in this back-to-school-season that is known as "la rentre" in France, French education minister Xavier Darcos has two words of advice: Learn English.

If that's a message that makes lovers of the language of Corneille and Molire cringe, it's also a wake-up call to face a new-world reality Darcos has recognized and to which his proposed, learn-English emphasis in France's nationally supervised education policy seeks to address.

As it is, French students have been receiving some 700 hours of instruction in English by the time they finish high school, but "the results" of that teaching, or perhaps of their absorption of it, has not kept up with the level "of investment" the government has made in such instruction, Darcos has observed.

The education minister is becoming more and more the minister of after-school time," the union sniffed, hinting that Darcos has no business telling students or teachers how to use after-class hours that are normally devoted to elective extracurricular activities.

The British newssheet, making an egregious English-language mistake of its own, added that Darcos had "admitted that, because of globalization, very few people outside France will being able to speak French in the future.

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Xavier Darcos says French high school students will be offered optional intensive seminars in English-language skills during school vacations in February and the summer.

Darcos says it is a handicap to speak poor English.