Perhaps more than their neighbors, French leaders abhor a slight, real or imagined.

The Shanghai Jiao Tong University publishes a ranking of universities worldwide, most recently the Academic Ranking of World Universities 2007. The ranking has received considerable attention, from the press and from the world of higher education, notwithstanding the obscurity of its source.

Not surprisingly, the top schools tend to be private and in the USA. No French school is in the top 10, and only a handful are in the top 100.

This rankles French leaders to no end.

One French school, the Ecole des Mines de Paris, put out its own ranking, using a different methodology (it looked at where leading CEOs went to school). French schools score well in this ranking.

A French senator, Joël Bourdin, recently submitted a 108-page report on rankings. This is a subject that he takes very seriously, and seems to see as a national problem or threat. He’s not alone in this preoccupation. Bourdin’s report includes a poll, which reports that a solid majority of the French higher education crowd: is aware of the Shanghai rankings; knows where its institution stands in the rankings; and is actively trying to boost its standing.

Valérie Pécresse, French minister for higher education and research, wants to make a European ranking a priority for the French presidency of the European Union, and plans to unveil a scheme at a conference to be held in Nice next November.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy reportedly set Pécresse a target of placing 2 French schools in the top 20, and 10 French schools in the top 100, of a ranking, from Shanghai or elsewhere.

It’s dispiriting to see so much attention paid to perception rather than action. And it’s discouraging never to hear a strong point of French higher education (shared with several of its neighbors): fulfilling a mission to offer many students broad access to higher education. Finally, it’s frustrating that so little voice is given to a graver problem: what does French higher education offer to the bottom quartile of entrants, many of whom stumble and get stuck, without earning a degree?