France
Lycée Louis-le-Grand and Lycée Henri IV in Paris
The "Critérium" of the Institut d'études politiques (IEP) is an annual multi-sport competition between the 9 IEPs. It is traditionally held on the last weekend of March with the host city changing every year. It is the occasion for the IEPs located in French regions to challenge the more prestigious IEP Paris (known as "Sciences Po"). A final opposing Paris to, for example, Lyon would see students from all over France cheering for Lyon, especially with the anthem "Province unie, tous contre Paris !" ("Province united, all against Paris !", the "province" being a somewhat pejorative term used to designate any place in France outside of Paris). The Paris students would respond by boasting their status as a Grande école and élite institution.
ESSEC Business School and HEC Paris have been fierce rivals with HEC topping most rankings and ESSEC often coming second. However, ESSEC has long been considered an entrepreneurial powerhouse, more dynamic and open-minded than HEC, whilst the latter has constantly been accused of snobbish attitudes due to the elitist mindset of its student population. Whether either assumptions are true or false, those two schools have produced the elite of French business circles, alongside the other "Parisian" business school ESCP-EAP, Sciences Po Paris and leading engineering institutes such as the Ecole Polytechnique.
Read more about this topic: College Rivalry
Famous quotes containing the word france:
“It is not what France gave you but what it did not take from you that was important.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“France has lost a battle. But France has not lost the war!”
—Charles De Gaulle (1890–1970)
“I shall not bring an automobile with me. These inventions infest France almost as much as Bloomer cycling costumes, but they make a horrid racket, and are particularly objectionable. So are the Bloomers. Nothing more abominable has ever been invented. Perhaps the automobile tricycles may succeed better, but I abjure all these works of the devil.”
—Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)