French high school graduation rate below rest of Europe

A study of France's high school graduation rates found that the country is behind the European average for completing high school. The study by France's national statistics agency, Insee, found that about 72.5 percent of French adults have high school diplomas, which is lower than the European average of 74.2 percent, TheLocal.fr reported. However, the results of the study may not be as bad as they seem, Insee said. Just 56 percent of French people over the age of 65 left high school without getting a diploma, but the percentage of 18-24 year olds who didn't graduate high school is 11.6 percent. "This strong growth is mainly due to an increase in the number of general baccalaureates and significant growth in the vocational baccalaureates," created in the mid-80s, Insee said. Meanwhile, a 2013 poll by RTL radio found that 58 percent of French people said they were unhappy with the quality of the education they received when they were in school, TheLocal said. "From the point of view of the French people, teachers today are not trained well to deal with events like conflicts between pupils, or even conflicts between pupils and teachers, over subjects such as religion," pollster Yves-Marie Cann told RTL.