French minister says US tries to brainwash world

PARIS, Nov 23 (Reuters) - French Education Minister Claude Allegre accused the United States on Tuesday of trying to brainwash the world by opening American universities around the globe based on a strategy of "one teaching, one thinking".

In an interview with the daily Le Monde, he also charged that Washington wanted to privatise education around the world by including this sector among service industries to be liberalised in World Trade Organisation negotiations.

"It would be a catastrophe if the Americans set up their universities all around the world, all based on the same model with the same curriculum," said Allegre, an often outspoken confident of Socialist Prime Minister Lionel Jospin.

"Standardised teaching would lead to a uniform world of 'one teaching, one thinking'," he said. "We are preparing a counter- attack, including in the area of correspondence courses."

Several U.S. universities have branches abroad, teaching in English for Americans abroad and local students interested in an American-style education.

U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky has suggested education be treated as a service industry, comparable to banking or insurance, in trade liberalisation talks to be launched by the World Trade Organisation in Seattle next week.

Allegre said European countries, where most schools are state run and few private universities exist, had opposed this.

"We are now at a historic turning point," he said. "We now see the intention to privatise education."

Allegre said public schools providing equal chances for all were part of the historical and cultural roots of the French Republic.

"It's perfectly fine if our students go to study in the United States or in England," he said, but having American universities expand around the globe would be a catastrophe.

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Ray

-- Ray (ray@totacc.com), November 23, 1999

Answers

Why would a Socialist not like what the US teaches these days?

-- Anonymous999 (Anonymous999@Anonymous999.xxx), November 23, 1999.

Well now wait here one minute! We've tons of the Indian Montessori private schools about the USA. I had even sent my son to one for all his pre-school years way back a million moons ago.

What brain wash?

-- Paula (chowbabe@pacbell.net), November 23, 1999.

In the original interview in Le Monde he does not accuse the US of trying to brainwash anybody. Any non-francophones among you may like to try the ever-useful babelfish.

-- Rob (rob@planet.rob), November 23, 1999.

Please remember two adjectives for the French government:

socialist

corporatist

-- Rick (rick7@postmark.net), November 23, 1999.

Those idiots should thank us for putting our schools over there...maybe teach 'em how not to lose a war sometime this century...

-- Billy-Boy (Rakkasan@yahoo.com), November 23, 1999.

Follow the money.

For some reason, people are willing to mortage a good portion of their future, sometimes into the six figures for what passes for a university education these days. The federal government loans the money and gets an indentured servant in return. This country is about all tapped out of suckers willing to participate in this scheme. The only thing to do is expand the business overseas.

-- JIT (justintime@rightnow.net), November 23, 1999.