The French take school seriously. And in the French model, homework –schoolwork done outside the school walls– is serious business.

French students, starting in elementary school, routinely work several hours,every day; the 35-hour work week applies to workers, not to students. (I grew up in the United States and went to good schools, but apart from very few exceptions don't recall doing homework, at all, before I went to college.)

Tutoring services have developed to help students and their families deal with the workload. In Paris, where I live, ads for tutoring proliferate, and the practice seems to be thriving outside Paris as well.

The operating method is uniform: a tutor comes to your home and works with the student, one-on-one. The tutors are be either university students or teachers. There's no equivalent in France to "after-school schools" common in Japan or Korea, although the French also have "vacation schools" during schools breaks; these programs usually combine study and sport, or at least pleasant scenery.

There has been grumbling about the economic justice of the system, which puts tutoring out of reach of lower-income families; the Sarkozy administration has tried to address this, mostly for primary school students in need of extra help. But there seems to be broad tolerance of the tutoring system, and even strong demand –from parents and society generally– for a steady stream of homework.

A development in the tutoring business created a huge scandal in France this week. A web site, faismesdevoirs.com (meaning: do my homework dot com) offers, for a few euros, to solve math problems, write essays, or correct homework.

Most commentators take the site seriously, and are not pleased. Le Monde carried an editorial that excoriated the service and demanded that it be outlawed. Times columnist Charles Bremer reports on the situation thoughtfully and completely.

My reaction: is this for real?

When first told about the service, I had trouble believing that French kids would have there wherewithal to make online payments. I went to the web site but found it "paused": not offline, not closed, but with a front page that said, in essence, "be back soon!"

French web site Le Post reports that people presented as the homework site's "team" might be fictitious, and that their photo seems to come from a photo bank.

Here's what I think: by launching the service –real or not– the founders have demonstrated some kind of aptitude. At low cost, lots of people are aware of the site, and are talking about it. The founders can soon claim that political pressure –actual or threatened– forced them to shut down their operation. And then they can go on the (job) interview circuit. I can think of plenty of recruiters who'd be eager to talk the founders, if only to hear them explain the genesis of the site. They'll get interviews, and they'll stand out from the mass of similarly situated candidates.