Bayrou was talking about improving education by massive investment. Do you really think it would have been intelligent of him to offer to finance it by cutting out vocational training (formation professionnelle)? That would really be robbing Peter to pay Paul, wouldn't it? (And, though, while being wrong about the cost, you may be right that vocational training could be better done, is it possible to totally do away with schemes for re-training the unemployed?)

Generally, it's often been remarked here on ET that it is easy to say: look, Sweden does this, Denmark does that, look at Finland! But much harder to show how systems that have evolved in small, tight, consensual economies like those can readily be transposed to a much bigger economy like the French (British, German, Italian). We should just kick out a third of public servants is the kind of reactionary panacea you can hear in any French town at the bar of the Café du Commerce. It's not a serious proposition.