Université Paris-Sud XI – Survival Guide

Firstly, the following may be an overused statement and perhaps sound slightly clichéd, but… I can honestly say that my year in Paris was the most wonderful year of my life!

My year was, for me, memorable in every way. Living in a cosmopolitan city with the opportunity of meeting and forming friendships with people of different nationalities and different cultures. Indeed, someone once said to me that the more you visit Paris, the more you will love it and I can only endorse that wholeheartedly.

To begin with, I will write about the “settling in” period. I can remember it vividly, arriving in Paris (or should I say just south of Paris, near the university), apprehensive, not knowing what to expect from the accommodation, the people or the university. I can imagine that it will be the same for you when you arrive so all I can say is…it’s perfectly normal! Fortunately, shortly after being informed by Edinburgh that you have your place in Paris, you should receive a welcome pack from the Université Paris-Sud XI which contains some useful information about the university. However, one quickly learns that the Faculté Jean Monnet in Sceaux (which is where you will study law) is better equipped to give you the most useful information concerning your impending trip to Paris. The person in charge of foreign students at the Faculté is Florence Peyre (florence.peyre@jm.u-psud.fr) and I found her very helpful, especially in relation to accommodation. University Résidences are run by a central governmental organisation called the CROUS and, one must admit, French university accommodation does have a bad reputation! Nevertheless, an e-mail reply from Florence Peyre informed me of the Résidence Universitaire de Châtenay-Malabry. This is where I stayed and I would strongly recommend you to choose this as your accommodation. It is a 30 minute walk from the Faculté (or a 10 minute bus ride using the 195). While it is not quite up to the standard you would expect at the University of Edinburgh (e.g. you will shower in cubicles similar to what you may find in a public toilet!), it provides adequate facilities for the typical student with a monthly rent of €175 (approximately £130). I certainly enjoyed my time in the Résidence and never had any qualms about security. It also gives you the best opportunity to meet French people and is great value for money when you consider that flat accommodation in the Sceaux area is very difficult to find and costs in the region of €1000 plus.

It is worth mentioning, at this time, that the suburban areas around the faculty (e.g. Sceaux, Châtenay-Malabry, Fontenay-aux-Roses) are some of the richest on France – it really is a beautiful area.

One other item that may concern you is actually getting there. At the beginning of the year, I was fortunate enough to have a car and my parents to help me. However, there are alternatives. Air Scotland has recently started cheap flights from Glasgow to Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport, providing easy onward travel to the accommodation and faculty using RER line B (the blue one) to Robinson station. British Airways also fly from all major Scottish Airports to CDG. Ryanair fly from Prestwick to Beauvais and this can be as cheap as £40 return if you book well in advance. The problem with this is the stingy 15kg luggage limit!

So now you’ve actually got there and moved in, there’s the university itself, located in the leafy suburb of Sceaux, south of Paris in département 92 (Hauts-de-Seine). The Faculté Jean Monnet does everything it can to make you feel welcome and Florence Peyre will be your personal contact to help with course choices, timetabling and any other problems you may encounter during the year. The French language is, honestly, no problem and the university runs language courses in the first week (i.e. in September) to help you settle in, then once a week for the entire first semester.

Concerning the law courses you will follow – you must study the two compulsory courses of Droit des sociétés (Company Law) and Droit administratif (Administrative Law), both of which are assessed by 2 written exams (one in the January/February exam diet and one in the May/June exam diet) and 50% continuous assessment. You will also follow 4 courses of your choice (i.e. 2 in each semester) where you will only attend lectures.

The 2 compulsory courses are exclusively for you and your fellow ERASMUS students from England, Germany and Spain. The tutors make it very simple to follow the law and help you along throughout the year, making it easy to get good marks. Monsieur Branlard is the enthusiastic, eccentric and excitable tutor for Droit des sociétés and I will guarantee that, by the end of the year, you will absolutely love French company law! It is an extremely interesting subject and, after learning all the terminology, everything fits into place. The tutor for Droit administratif is the lethargic, scatter-brained Madame Massanet who could not be more of a contrast to Monsieur Branlard. However, she is equally as enthusiastic and helpful and will tell you all sorts of anecdotes to help you through the fascinating maze of the French administration!

The 4 other courses you will follow throughout the year are, alas, not as fun. They are half courses, thus you will probably choose to follow 2 in each semester. This is the time when you actually have to enter a lecture hall with 400 other francophone students and sit through a 3¼-hour lecture. However, there are no tutorials (or as the French call them, “les Travaux Dirigés (TD)”). The language is, honestly, not a problem and after a short period of adjustment, you will be able to understand nearly everything the lecturer says. Another tip is to buy a good textbook to help you follow the course – you will find that most “manuels” mirror exactly what is taught in the lecture. The exams are conducted by the lecturer and are oral. Normal procedure is that you are given a topic, 15 minutes to prepare a presentation and then you must present it to the lecturer. The disadvantage is that you really need to know the entire course, inside out. The advantage is that an examiner is only too happy to give high marks of 70% plus if you perform well. Popular subjects “à l’oral” were Droit pénal général, Droit civil I and II, Relations Internationales, and Droit communautaire général. Any students that have not studied E.C. Law at Edinburgh (such as students of Law and French) will be required to follow Droit communautaire materiel and Contentieux communautaire in order to gain an E.C. exemption from Edinburgh. At the end of the year, you will receive the “Diplome Universitaire de Droit Français” and, depending on your average mark, a mention of “bien” or “très bien.”

With classes on only 2 or 3 days of the week, you are left with plenty free time to explore the wonderful city of Paris! However, I should, firstly mention Sceaux and the area around the Faculté. About 10 minutes from the “fac”, there is a nice little pedestrianised street with many upmarket shops and exquisite patisseries which I can thoroughly recommend! Also, close to the Résidence at Châtenay is the beautiful Parc de Sceaux with its magnificent Château – a perfect place for sunbathing during May and June when your exams are over, the sun is shining, there isn’t a single cloud in the sky and the temperature is 30°c! Moving onto Paris itself, it really is a wonderful place to be. You may have visited it on holiday and I can guarantee you 100% that living there is equally special. As I have already mentioned, you are situated only 25 minutes away from central Paris using the RER express train line B. This gives you direct access to areas such as Saint-Michel and Châtelet, as well as connections to the excellent métro network. I would recommend the Carte Imagine-R which allows you to travel on the bus and train in the university area (which is zone 3), as well as central Paris (zone 1). This is approximately €300, but lasts for the entire year and is, financially, the best option.

Living in Paris is not as expensive as you may think and you can easily find cheaper areas if you shop around. It is, for example, possible to purchase a good 3 course meal (with copious amounts of wine!) for as little as €10, particularly in the St-Michel/Notre Dame area. There is nothing quite like wandering around the tiny, narrow streets that have scores of restaurants on either side – at the door of each one is the owner, trying to encourage you to enter his particular restaurant by offering you free drinks!! We were also fortunate to find an excellent bar called “Bistro de la Huchette” on rue de la Huchette in St-Michel, the like of which we could not find anywhere else in the whole city. It was our regular calling point on a night out and by the end of the year, we were being given free bottles of €80 champagne! Also of note is the Bastille area, a personal recommendation being the Route 66 café on rue de Lappe – excellent food and excellent half-price cocktails in happy hour (5:30-8:30pm!). Clubbing does, however, tend to be rather expensive and one can regularly expect to pay €20 for entry, with any drink costing €10 at the club bar. Of note is Club Duplex on avenue Foch, near les Champs-Elysées. The Sports Association at the Faculté Jean Monnet organises at least one night out each semester, where they will hire a club in Paris and sell cheaper drinks.

Finally, the more mundane topic of banks. Most will allow you to set up an account with no money, but this will give you an international account number (IBAN), thus your parents can transfer money into the account from their U.K. bank. Personally, I had a cheque made out in Euros by the Bank of Scotland and paid this into a newly created French bank account. I would thoroughly recommend the BNP Paribas which has many branches near the faculty and in Central Paris. They will create an account with a Visa facility and Carte Bleue – similar to the chip and PIN system recently introduced in the UK.

Finally, all I can say is have a wonderful time if you do indeed choose to spend your year in Paris. It is most definitely a choice you will not regret!

Bon courage !

Ross Fair – March 2005 (Feel free to e-mail any questions to rossfair@hotmail.com)

(ERASMUS Student at the Faculté Jean Monnet in academic year 2003/04)