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I don't know if things changed since then, but the people I know who went through the French math system had some of the strongest technical abilities in math I've seen. They also would have exactly 0 difficulty drawing that parametric equation so I don't know what to take away from this as it seems overly sensational.

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The people you met probably went through the 'classe preparatoire aux grandes écoles'

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Classe_pr%C3%A9paratoire_aux...

It's brutally efficient at selecting the best math students (including the ones who actually want to study engineering, since the entrance exams are about maths and physics ) , and the sheer amount of work you put in two years is absolutely staggering.

It's obviously not perfect, and people regularly talk about getting rid of this system, but it works well for the students who survive.

My understanding is that the article mainly concerns the education of (pure) mathematicians and not engineers, say. Maybe that explains the discrepancy between your experience and the article’s claims.

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