ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a brief introduction of comprehensive schools in England and of the comprehensive middle school or collège unique in France that have both represented an educational turning point in the two countries. For the British Labour Party, education was an instrument of social engineering. In that perspective the introduction of comprehensive schools was aimed at abolishing all selection between the end of primary education and the beginning of secondary education, and particularly by the abolition of the socially divisive '11 plus' examination. By contrast the evolution of the French system of secondary education has been very conformist and no political party, even socialist or radical, has ever expected much, politically speaking, from education. It is also necessary to remember that, up to the 'Haby Reform' in 1975, educational structures and reforms had been very much influenced by history, reforms being carried out in different stages.
