Anecdotal, but some French computer scientists I know think language is one factor for their relative invisibility: basically everything is done in French, and much of it is required to be in French. The increasing practice in some other European countries is to allow a greater scope for English in the sciences and engineering.
In particular, any official thesis or report must be in French, which means that the thesis itself won't be widely read/cited internationally, and means that it can't be directly chopped up to make English-language journal articles; the student would have to translate their own thesis to republish parts of it in journals. In addition, they aren't generally required to be able to: since everything official is done in French, it's not necessary for a student to have English writing skills of a level sufficient to write for a scientific journal (though they do generally need English reading skills sufficient to read papers in their area).
Since universities are public, so republican, schools, it makes sense to make them apply and respect the constitution.
The idea is that any French citizen is able to have access, read and understand any published university thesis (PhD), since they paid for them (via taxes). In the same vein, students of the École Polytechnique are required to work 5 years for the State after their studies, since the State paid such a good formation to them.
French can always go to private school (or emigrate) if they don't agree with that.
"Since universities are public, so republican, schools, it makes sense to make them apply and respect the constitution."
Many constitutions have a clause like that. Encouraging international visibility, which requires English language skills, is not contrary to that.
"French can always go to private school (or emigrate) if they don't agree with that."
The point is that they're cutting off their nose to spite their faces. French researchers and students, and citizens more in general, are isolated in their own little world because their strange sense of 'pride' is causing them to be so. I don't care, really; but I do sometimes feel sympathy for those that I talk to who realize this and (rightfully) blame the system for their lowered chances at international success.
> Encouraging international visibility, which requires English language skills, is not contrary to that.
No, it's not, and international visibility is obviously a good thing! But there is a problem if a PhD is published only in english, because then there might be French citizens who will not be able to read a work they paid for (remember, the public education system is funded by the taxpayers-citizens). Since most people yelling about the "language restriction" problem actually imply that they should be able to publish in english only, I did recall that this would be unconstitutional in France. Additionally publishing in english has never been forbidden or discouraged!
> I do sometimes feel sympathy for those that I talk to who realize this and (rightfully) blame the system for their lowered chances at international success.
This system is the application of the law. The French law is the consensus of all the French citizens on the way they want to live all together. If you, individually, don't like the law, you can militate for a change (possible since France is a democracy), or leave the country, if you really can't live with this general consensus. Dura lex sed lex.
In this specific case, you can also just go to a private school which will let you write in english or whatever. Sure, you'll have to pay there; sorry, you can't have the free public education with no duties in return in France.
Ideologically speaking, the French education system is very egalitarian and very meritocratic. Lots of people don't agree with it (the majority still does). That's why the private schools were allowed (after a violent public debate). But it's a chosen, working and interesting system. Yes, you can "rightfully blame the system", in the sense that you have the right to disagree, but otherwise it's not any more "rightful" to blame it than to blame any other working system (e.g: the US one). It's just a different conception of education and its place in the society.
That seems reasonable; I didn't actually mean it as a criticism, just an explanation. Publishing only in French has downsides for readability outside France, but as you say, publishing only in English has downsides for readability within France. Most CS researchers and students I've met would prefer the English solution, mostly because they feel that, unlike in fields like philosophy or political science, the average French person isn't interested in reading their work anyway--- the only person who's going to read a theoretical CS thesis is another theoretical CS researcher. And in that case, they'd prefer the international community of theoretical CS researchers to be able to read their work.
Denmark is an interesting example of the opposite case: there are now graduate degree programs where you cannot study in Danish, because all courses and coursework are English-only. That's controversial to some extent, for obvious reasons. It does have some upsides from an international perspective, since Denmark can now hire researchers who don't speak Danish (which is why I'm in Denmark currently), and can also accept PhD students from other countries without requiring them to learn Danish first. But the situation differs from French because Danish has many fewer fluent speakers (about 6 million), so works published in Danish reach an audience much smaller than works published in French do.
> But there is a problem if a PhD is published only in english, because then there might be French citizens who will not be able to read a work they paid for (remember, the public education system is funded by the taxpayers-citizens).
Maybe those citizens should learn English.
But one of the main reasons why so many people in France don't speak English is precisely their broken educational system. (This is not exclusive to France, Spain for example is very similar.)
> Ideologically speaking, the French education system is very egalitarian and very meritocratic.
I don't see how a system can be both egalitarian and meritocratic.
> But it's a chosen, working and interesting system.
It is a system that fails the majority of the population ans only benefits the extremely small elite that gets to go to the Grandes Écoles.
"I don't see how a system can be both egalitarian and meritocratic."
Egalitarian: education is free for all, and richs and poors (normally) go to the same school, the one of their town, until at least 16. Egality of chance.
Meritocratic: but after 16, you go to the university or a grande école according to your abilities/ranks. The best can go to Polytechnique, the good can go to a grande école or a good university, the rest goes to the other universities (and it's still free for all).
It doesn't matter if your parents are poor and if you were born in the country and not in Paris, if you're great you can go to Polytechnique. And no matter how rich the parents, if you suck, you won't go to Polytechnique.
I've come across a couple of very cool French research/open source projects that haven't gone anywhere. eg http://old.koalateam.com/XML/serialization/ (I know it's Java and XML, but consider the date: 1999. And it was just an incidental part of a larger project).
They seem very insular, doing everything themselves and eventually running out of steam/funding - which reminds me of lisp projects (or... academic projects in general). I get the impression that the French academic culture emphasizes beautiful theory over pragmatism (e.g. Laplace vs. Lord Kelvin, IIRC).
A great ideal, worked for Einstein.. but for few others.
It reminds me of disturbingly common ideological standards at corporations that require all in-house software to be written in the-one-true-and-blessed-language, under the guise of a short sighted notion that this directly translates into understanding by all.
The three main reasons are: size, language and research funding.
The best higher education institutions in France are the "Grande Écoles", which are very small compared to North American univesities. Around 500 students graduate each year from the École polytechnique, for example. Although there are a lot more students who study to be accepted at these écoles, they do so in another parallel system called "classes préparatoires". Which is in its self separate from French university system.
The French language does play another important role. France has not adopted english as much as Germany or the Scandinavian countries have. Publication is almost always done in French. Although my American friends tell me things have improved a lot in the past 10 years.
Finally, although french universities and grand écoles perform basic and applied research, a majority of the work is done at public research labs. Their scientific results are attached to the lab, which are not part of the universities. Although they can often be in the same location.
Nonetheless, if you ever have the opportunity and get accepted by one of these écoles do not hesitate to go. They are very good schools.
Ecole Polytechnique is not an university, it's a separate system. There are a lot of engineering schools in France which are independent from universities. These schools are very small compared to universities.
