"Can't Take the Exam"... A High School Student's Letter That Moved the President

"Unfair Exams After Prolonged Remote Classes"
Semester Assessment Scores Replaced National Exams

French Baccalaureate. Yonhap News Agency

French President Emmanuel Macron has drawn attention after receiving a letter requesting the cancellation of university entrance exams for students at French schools in the Middle East, which has been plunged into turmoil due to war, and then actually making such a decision.

According to a report by Yonhap News Agency citing the French daily Le Parisien on May 31, Younes, a 17-year-old student attending a French high school in Bahrain, sent a letter to President Macron earlier this month.

The school announced that in-person classes would resume from June 5 and instructed students to focus on preparing for the Baccalaureate. However, Younes appealed that it was impossible to take the exam under normal conditions due to the aftermath of the war. The Baccalaureate is a national exam that French high school seniors take every June. Passing this exam is necessary for high school graduation and university admission. It is graded on an absolute scale, and students pass by scoring 10 or more out of a possible 20 points.

The school Younes attends has been conducting remote classes since February 28, when the Middle East war broke out following airstrikes on Iran by the United States and Israel. Younes returned to his hometown of Toulouse in southern France with his family and continued his classes online.

When the school resumed in-person classes, Younes returned to Bahrain. However, he felt it was unfair to take the Baccalaureate after nearly two months without proper learning. Younes said, "All the students were angry. We couldn't go to school for two months, so we wondered how we could possibly take a national exam. This was not something we could make up for in a short time."

Together with other students, he started a petition requesting that graduation eligibility be recognized based solely on semester assessment scores. Students at French schools not only in Bahrain but also in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Kuwait joined, gathering over 1,000 signatures.

Younes wrote to President Macron, "Because of the anxiety caused by the war, cross-border movement, and prolonged remote classes, many students had difficulty focusing on their studies. We hope our special circumstances will be taken into consideration."

A few days later, a reply arrived from the Chief of Staff to the President, expressing that President Macron sympathized with the students' request.

Subsequently, on the 12th, French education authorities announced that students at French schools in Mali, Africa, would be exempted from the Baccalaureate and evaluated based solely on their semester assessment scores. This region, like the Middle East, is experiencing instability due to attacks by armed groups.

Accordingly, French high school seniors in these regions have been granted graduation and university admission eligibility based on their internal assessment scores, without the need to take the national exam.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.