

Why France is building a mega-university at Paris-Saclay to rival Silicon Valley - acalmon
https://theconversation.com/why-france-is-building-a-mega-university-at-paris-saclay-to-rival-silicon-valley-41786

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Red_Tarsius
_A complex system that works is invariably found to have evolved from a simple
system that worked. A complex system designed from scratch never works and
cannot be patched up to make it work. You have to start over with a working
simple system._ – John Gall

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agumonkey
Reminds me of Jussieu/UPMC, very large university, quite an architectural and
administrative clusterfuck. Too large, unfinished, constant maintenance in
progress.

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vonnik
This entire article seems to misunderstand what Silicon Valley is, what
universities are, and the difference between them. It's rather typical of the
French statist approach, where change comes from top-down policy initiatives,
rather than from bottom-up civic and economic activity. How bureaucrats does
it take to teach a class on entrepreneurship?

French universities, in my personal experience, are deeply underfunded (i.e.
we can't afford chairs in all the classrooms), and the French economy is
hardly in a position to support this new, vaster agglomeration.

~~~
yodsanklai
> French universities, in my personal experience, are deeply underfunded (i.e.
> we can't afford chairs in all the classrooms)

I doubt ParisTech schools such as HEC or Polytechnique have chairs funding
issues.

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Totoradio
HEC and Polytechnique are not universities, they are "Grandes écoles"

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ryanobjc
I feel like Saclay won't rival Silicon Valley any time soon.

To me, part of the magic of silicon valley has little to do with Stanford
(although the article references Harvard??) or the mega businesses, but the
overall culture of northern california.

For example, would Apple Computer have happened if Steve Jobs had never done
LSD? How about BSD? Or many other highly creative and innovative systems.

Maybe it's a coincidence but the European hewing towards authoritarianism
thing leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

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vfrogger
So you're saying this thing would have better results if it were built in
Amsterdam :)

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ryanobjc
thc aint nuff, gotta have the psychedelics

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kbenzle
Can anyone tell me why French institutions are so inept at translating their
sites into English. It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French
speakers.

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yodsanklai
> It must be on purpose, a big f-u to non native French speakers.

I hate this stupid stereotype that French people don't want to learn/use
English because they're too proud to do so. I've heard this countless times.

Truth is English isn't an easy language to master for native French speakers.
It's similar for Italians or Spaniards for instance. And conversely, nobody
expect americans or brits to be fluent in a foreign language.

As for institutions websites, I agree with you it's a shame they don't offer
an English version more systematically. I just checked and it seems
"impots.gouv.fr" (tax website) doesn't have an English translation (research
and educational institutions always have one though).

I don't know why it is not the case. Maybe there's some truth in what you're
saying. Some people may think it's not worth the cost since foreigners willing
to live and work there should learn the language eventually. I disagree with
this type of nationalistic ideology, but again, it's certainly not unique to
France.

In any case, I think things are improving. For instance, more and more
universities have English curricula nowadays.

~~~
scrollaway
I'm French. I've lived in France, the UK, Sweden and a bunch of other places
in Europe.

English is dead easy to learn; people just don't care, it's in the culture.
Nobody can speak English back in france. It's pathetic. Often when I go
through Paris' airports, I speak english just to see how badly people still
speak it, and just how much effort they'll go through to _still speak french_
despite having someone who has shown no sign of speaking your language in
front of you.

For some, it's pride. For most, it's lack of education. For all, it's a sad,
sad situation. And the degree to which it happens is _absolutely_ unique to
France - I have never seen such dislike of foreign languages in any other
country - and my full time job is in localization engineering.

I've been in Stockholm for about a year now and I've had trouble finding
swedes that do _not_ speak English. The turkish immigrant at the local
pizzeria? Even his English is better than a majority of french people's skills
in _any_ foreign language, and he's the worst speaker I've met so far here. On
top of fluent Swedish and Turkish.

Greece? Spain? Romania? Even Germany! Most people speak English, and often a
third language. This is unique to France and it's not something we can be
proud of.

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yodsanklai
> English is dead easy to learn

Maybe it was for you, but its not equally easy to learn for let say Swedes,
French and Japanese. I noticed latin languages speakers have a harder time.
English accent is very difficult to get right for French.

> Nobody can speak English back in france. It's pathetic.

It's obviously not true. Most people that went through high school at least
know the basics. Usually, they lack practice and feel shy and self conscious,
but I believe they can sustain a simple conversation if needed.

And all "grandes écoles" students speak at least decent English (I know for
teaching in one).

> This is unique to France

Have you been to Italy? my experience is that they're not better than the
French as far as english speaking is concerned. Same in Spain.

But seriously, what about Japan? Peru? Brazil? China? There are tons of
countries where most people don't speak english at all.

> it's not something we can be proud of.

A lot of time is devoted to teaching English in France. Starting at primary
school now. But learning a foreign language is notoriously hard. And things
are getting better.

Maybe, what is unique to the French is to think they are so unique at
everything :)

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bsaul
I'm so fed up with this. I found a gardening analogie to the way our
government handles the country development :

Normal people, whenever they want to grow plants, they start by looking at a
fertile soil, with good sunny weather, and good water supplies around. Then
they throw thousands of seeds all around and see what grows, and take care of
it over time.

Now, in france it's different. We bring in 20000 liters of water in
containers, buy 3 tons of fertilizers, and put one seed in the ground.

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x5n1
The seeds are students or the startups, the water is billions of dollars or
euros. That's what you need for Silicon Valley. Seasoned capitalists with
money to burn. Government grants can not make up for the shark VCs that know
what they are doing, or trying to do.

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neuro_imager
You also need a culture of entrepreneurship that bootlegs itself. The previous
generation of companies helping the new generation - this is what is truly
unusual about SV.

The more bureaucracy you build in to your culture to try and "facilitate
entrepreneurship" the more you undermine this type of culture.

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iribe
French culture is very much reliant upon the centralized government to
do/provide everything. You can see it in their attempts at a government-
sanctioned google competitor, now a government-sanctioned silicon valley. And
it will fail over and over until they change the basic French outlook on jobs.
In France it's impossible to fire. Every job requires a ton of red tape.
Anything like a 1099 (hire/fire easily) employee is completely foreign to
french thinking. To them, companies can only exploit, and employees must be
protected by the government. They exhibit deep cynicism of capitalism, which
is mutually exclusive with silicon valley. France is an old money country, new
opportunities are almost impossible to find. France will never create a
silicon valley under these conditions.

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x5n1
They also need to allow H1Bs for companies to exploit.

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sjg007
Maybe they should watch the PBS special on the founding of Silicon valley.

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jnem
I find the title misleading and unanswered within the body of the story. Also,
Silicon Valley is not a university, though there are certainly a few peppered
throughout the valley.

