The BBC’s Paris correspondent Hugh Schofield is broadly happy with his children’s French education, but he does have one complaint:

French schools have absolutely no extra-curricular activities.

There are no debating societies, no orchestras, no film clubs, no sports teams, no painting classes, no school newspapers, and no drama, at least none worthy of the name.

This, it seems to me, has enormous implications for society as a whole.

Youngsters who are not exposed to these activities at school are unlikely to spot their own potential. Perhaps as a result in adult life, the associated professions – politics, theatre, journalism – now seem filled by self-replacing elites, which is both undemocratic and uninteresting.

How lucky we are to live in England.