Rachel J. Roche

We had our Constitutional law exam yesterday! An oral exam of all of 20 minutes would be a breeze in English of course, but this is a French course so, well, it was in French and the French political and legal system is nothing like ours in the UK!!

Anyway, yesterday morning I was up at 5:30am re-reading through my notes that I had been through in the company of fellow reviser Caroline for the 100th time the night before and then I had to hot-foot it over to Opéra for 9am where we had our first lesson in European Competition Law held in the plush meeting room at a rather swanky law firm. It definitely made a change from the drab building on over by Metro Saint-Paul and next week I am definitely using the coffee machine and stealing the branded pen!

After we had stopped for lunch on the way back to our usual building, a few of us (including me) hid in the library for a few hours until it was our turn to take the exam. We had 15 minutes to prepare a question picked at random (using only an un-annotated copy of the Constitution) and then a 20 minute grilling on said question together with anything else the professor thought up. I had a question on the QPC (question prioritaire de constitutionnalité where litigants can ask the Conseil Constitutionnel whether a law is in line with the constitution – and then I was asked a series of questions ranging from the responsibility of the President of the Republic, immunity, a comparison with the role of the PM in the UK, the composition of the French government and a few other things. Needless to say the 20 minutes passed very quickly, I just hope I did enough to get through. We have no idea when the results will be available, for this or for our exam in Civil Responsibility or European Law – maybe they will keep us in suspense until Christmas, or maybe until the end of the course!

It’s Thanksgiving tomorrow – not a holiday I have ever celebrated before – but Caroline and Meghan are, of course, having a soriée! I am the designated dessert bearer and I can’t wait to see the fruits of Caroline’s cooking!

And then, I am coming back to the UK on Friday for the weekend. Haven’t been home since I got her (three months ago) so I am so excited about that, it’s going to be a great weekend!