We’re back in Central Park! This time, French teens Barbara and Lorraine discuss politics, including the recent controversial Contrat Première Embauche and President Nicolas Sarkozy. (Love him or leave him? The girls don’t quite agree…)

Students taking the baccalaureate exam must complete an essay, choosing amongst several possible philosophical and political themes. France 2 talks with some students about the experience, and asks some prominent politicians what they might have written if presented with the same task.

Meet a group of students as they prepare to take their baccalaureate test, a rite of passage for young French people on the cusp of adulthood. It can be a stressful time, but the students are pacing themselves well.

Like the SATs for Americans, or A level exams in the UK, the baccalauréat exam, or le bac, induces more than its fair share of stress in students finishing up their secondary school careers.

As a gift to journalists looking for a tongue-in-cheek story, French schools have banned kissing. Students ask, “Where’s the harm?”

Ten months of training go into learning to fly a helicopter, but less time is being spent aloft. More and more flight hours are logged in a hyper-realistic simulator that allows young pilots to hone their skills without ever leaving the earth.

The number of French students interested in studying Chinese has soared in French high schools in the last ten years. Though it is currently offered mostly by elite schools, the French government hopes to make it more accessible to all schools in years to come.

Does your textbook ever seem more confusing than enlightening, more wrong than right? A recent study showed that some French textbooks could use a little fact-checking.

A group of high school friends from the Haute-Savoie town of Scionzier are trying to stop the destruction of a small farm building they discovered and restored. One of their efforts is the organization of a community yard sale for the town.

The French equivalent of ESL (English as a Second Language) is known as FLE (Français langue étrangère, or “French as a Foreign Language”). FLE is what you’re learning right now, and it’s what one of the women in this video is learning to teach.