I've done high school in the French school system (it was just a good school next to my house) and I have to say that when I compare to my friends that have been in the Quebecois System, I can see clear differences in teaching ideologies. It made me chuckle when you told your message because one of the biggest differences I found the french system has is that they insist a lot about developing critical thinking. So much it was almost a running joke between me and my friends. It's a very important thing that is a huge part of French culture in my opinion (maybe that's where the stereotype about the French always protesting come from?) and having grown up party in that mentality I consider it a super important thing as well. It's a good message man, the world needs more thinkers! It was funny how the school was kind of setting itself up for trouble, they were also teaching the whole "respect for authority" part that I find less present in Quebec but the students were always eager to complain and go up the chain of command when some injustice was felt... I'm sure their job would have been easier if they didn't teach us critical thinking.
That's surprising, I almost never encountered that in school. It's only when I had a course on epistemology at the faculty that the idea really seemed to emerged. Then I read two books that influenced me in some way : Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman by Richard Feynman and The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb where the ideas to not trust experts and to go try to understand the roots of a problem connected with me. It's funny that you mention the respect to authority because it's true that in France, whether it's at school or at work, we really have a "structure" around that and I feel it's slowing down the whole process of thinking and achieving understanding by ourselves. We "learn" and don't "understand", we "trust" and don't "verify". It's true that we definitely try to go up the chain of command when injustice is felt though, but I guess a part of it comes from our national motto 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity': if inequality is felt at a level where we can have direct power/action towards it, we are going to try to solve it.
AHA! That's why I could not pin down your accent!