After noting that Le Figaro says “the three main candidates say little and say much the same, I wrote: “But the powerful right-wing minister of the interior has already created a private university which siphons off public funds. And Chirac has suggested an educational referendum. It is almost certainly a non-starter: a device for not saying what is in store, since to think up a question let alone to implement it is unbelievably complicated. Is the real programme of both Chirac and Balladur to boost the private schools, undermine the secular system and break up the national basis of teachers’ unions?”

ANNE CORBETT, Paris.