In France

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

, the concours général is a national competition

Competition

Competition is a contest between individuals, groups, animals, etc. for territory, a niche, or a location of resources. It arises whenever two and only two strive for a goal which cannot be shared. Competition occurs naturally between living organisms which co-exist in the same environment. For...

 held every year between students of Première (11th grade) and Terminale (12th and final grade) in almost all subjects taught in both general, technological and professional high schools. Exams usually take place in March, and their results are known in June or July.

In a given subject, up to 18 awards can be given:

• up to 3 Prize
  Prize
  A prize is an award to be given to a person or a group of people to recognise and reward actions or achievements. Official prizes often involve monetary rewards as well as the fame that comes with them...
  
  s. A student winning a prize takes part in a ceremony held in the main amphitheatre of the Sorbonne
  Sorbonne
  The Sorbonne is an edifice of the Latin Quarter, in Paris, France, which has been the historical house of the former University of Paris...
  
   University, where he or she is given the diploma and congratulated by the Minister of Education.
• up to 5 Accessits
• up to 10 Regional awards

Awarded students are called "lauréats".

Current list of subjects

Students of 11th grade only (all series):

• French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
  
• History
  History
  History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...
  
  
• Geography
  Geography
  Geography is the science that studies the lands, features, inhabitants, and phenomena of Earth. A literal translation would be "to describe or write about the Earth". The first person to use the word "geography" was Eratosthenes...
  
  
• Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
  -French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
   translation
  Translation
  Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
  
   (version latine)
• French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
  -Latin
  Latin
  Latin is an Italic language originally spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. It, along with most European languages, is a descendant of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. Although it is considered a dead language, a number of scholars and members of the Christian clergy speak it fluently, and...
  
   translation
  Translation
  Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
  
   (thème latin)
• Greek
  Greek language
  Greek is an independent branch of the Indo-European family of languages. Native to the southern Balkans, it has the longest documented history of any Indo-European language, spanning 34 centuries of written records. Its writing system has been the Greek alphabet for the majority of its history;...
  
  -French
  French language
  French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
  
   translation
  Translation
  Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. Whereas interpreting undoubtedly antedates writing, translation began only after the appearance of written literature; there exist partial translations of the Sumerian Epic of...
  
   (version grecque)

Students of both 11th and 12th grades:

• Plastic arts
• Music
  Music
  Music is an art form whose medium is sound and silence. Its common elements are pitch , rhythm , dynamics, and the sonic qualities of timbre and texture...
  
  

Students of 12th grade (General High Schools):

• Philosophy
  Philosophy
  Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
  
   (Two separate exams for Scientific/Economy and Humanities students)
• Mathematics
  Mathematics
  Mathematics is the study of quantity, space, structure, and change. Mathematicians seek out patterns and formulate new conjectures. Mathematicians resolve the truth or falsity of conjectures by mathematical proofs, which are arguments sufficient to convince other mathematicians of their validity...
  
   (Scientific section only)
• Physics
  Physics
  Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
  
   and Chemistry
  Chemistry
  Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
  
   (Scientific section only)
• Biology
  Biology
  Biology is a natural science concerned with the study of life and living organisms, including their structure, function, growth, origin, evolution, distribution, and taxonomy. Biology is a vast subject containing many subdivisions, topics, and disciplines...
  
   and Geology
  Geology
  Geology is the science comprising the study of solid Earth, the rocks of which it is composed, and the processes by which it evolves. Geology gives insight into the history of the Earth, as it provides the primary evidence for plate tectonics, the evolutionary history of life, and past climates...
  
   (Scientific section only)
• Engineering
  Engineering
  Engineering is the discipline, art, skill and profession of acquiring and applying scientific, mathematical, economic, social, and practical knowledge, in order to design and build structures, machines, devices, systems, materials and processes that safely realize improvements to the lives of...
  
   (Scientific section only)
• Economics
  Economics
  Economics is the social science that analyzes the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. The term economics comes from the Ancient Greek from + , hence "rules of the house"...
  
   (Economical section only)

Language exams:

• Arabic
  Arabic language
  Arabic is a name applied to the descendants of the Classical Arabic language of the 6th century AD, used most prominently in the Quran, the Islamic Holy Book...
  
  
• Chinese
  Chinese language
  The Chinese language is a language or language family consisting of varieties which are mutually intelligible to varying degrees. Originally the indigenous languages spoken by the Han Chinese in China, it forms one of the branches of Sino-Tibetan family of languages...
  
   (from 2007)
• English
  English language
  English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
  
  
• German
  German language
  German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
  
  
• Hebrew
  Hebrew language
  Hebrew is a Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Culturally, is it considered by Jews and other religious groups as the language of the Jewish people, though other Jewish languages had originated among diaspora Jews, and the Hebrew language is also used by non-Jewish groups, such...
  
  
• Italian
  Italian language
  Italian is a Romance language spoken mainly in Europe: Italy, Switzerland, San Marino, Vatican City, by minorities in Malta, Monaco, Croatia, Slovenia, France, Libya, Eritrea, and Somalia, and by immigrant communities in the Americas and Australia...
  
  
• Portuguese
  Portuguese language
  Portuguese is a Romance language that arose in the medieval Kingdom of Galicia, nowadays Galicia and Northern Portugal. The southern part of the Kingdom of Galicia became independent as the County of Portugal in 1095...
  
  
• Spanish
  Spanish language
  Spanish , also known as Castilian , is a Romance language in the Ibero-Romance group that evolved from several languages and dialects in central-northern Iberia around the 9th century and gradually spread with the expansion of the Kingdom of Castile into central and southern Iberia during the...
  
  
• Russian
  Russian language
  Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
  
  

Students of technological and professional high schools usually attempt their main subject.

Alumni

The Concours Général was created in 1744, so being a lauréat of the Concours général is a very prestigious award for any high school student. Many well-known French scientists, artists and literary figures have won the Concours Général in one or even several subjects. Such names include: Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune

Anne Robert Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune

Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot, Baron de Laune , often referred to as Turgot, was a French economist and statesman. Turgot was a student of Francois Quesnay and as such belonged to the Physiocratic school of economic thought...

, Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine Lavoisier

Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier , the "father of modern chemistry", was a French nobleman prominent in the histories of chemistry and biology...

, Camille Desmoulins

Camille Desmoulins

Lucie Simplice Camille Benoît Desmoulins was a journalist and politician who played an important role in the French Revolution. He was a childhood friend of Maximilien Robespierre and a close friend and political ally of Georges Danton, who were influential figures in the French Revolution.-Early...

, Augustin Louis Cauchy

Augustin Louis Cauchy

Baron Augustin-Louis Cauchy was a French mathematician who was an early pioneer of analysis. He started the project of formulating and proving the theorems of infinitesimal calculus in a rigorous manner, rejecting the heuristic principle of the generality of algebra exploited by earlier authors...

, Émile Littré

Émile Littré

Émile Maximilien Paul Littré was a French lexicographer and philosopher, best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française, commonly called "The Littré".-Biography:Émile Littré was born in Paris...

, Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve

Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve was a literary critic and one of the major figures of French literary history.-Early years:...

, Alfred de Musset

Alfred de Musset

Alfred Louis Charles de Musset-Pathay was a French dramatist, poet, and novelist.Along with his poetry, he is known for writing La Confession d'un enfant du siècle from 1836.-Biography:Musset was born on 11 December 1810 in Paris...

, Urbain Le Verrier, Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire

Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...

, Edmond de Goncourt

Edmond de Goncourt

Edmond de Goncourt , born Edmond Louis Antoine Huot de Goncourt, was a French writer, literary critic, art critic, book publisher and the founder of the Académie Goncourt.-Biography:...

, Marcelin Berthelot, Hippolyte Taine

Hippolyte Taine

Hippolyte Adolphe Taine was a French critic and historian. He was the chief theoretical influence of French naturalism, a major proponent of sociological positivism, and one of the first practitioners of historicist criticism. Literary historicism as a critical movement has been said to originate...

, Fustel de Coulanges, Émile Boutroux

Emile Boutroux

Étienne Émile Marie Boutroux was an eminent 19th century French philosopher of science and religion, and an historian of philosophy. He was a firm opponent of materialism in science. He was a spiritual philosopher who defended the idea that religion and science are compatible at a time when the...

, Paul Bourget

Paul Bourget

Paul Charles Joseph Bourget , was a French novelist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Amiens in the Somme département of Picardie, France. His father, a professor of mathematics, was later appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand, where Bourget received his early education...

, Henri Poincaré

Henri Poincaré

Jules Henri Poincaré was a French mathematician, theoretical physicist, engineer, and a philosopher of science...

, Jean Jaurès

Jean Jaurès

Jean Léon Jaurès was a French Socialist leader. Initially an Opportunist Republican, he evolved into one of the first social democrats, becoming the leader, in 1902, of the French Socialist Party, which opposed Jules Guesde's revolutionary Socialist Party of France. Both parties merged in 1905 in...

, Paul Painlevé

Paul Painlevé

Paul Painlevé was a French mathematician and politician. He served twice as Prime Minister of the Third Republic: 12 September – 13 November 1917 and 17 April – 22 November 1925.-Early life:Painlevé was born in Paris....

, André Suarès

André Suarès

André Suarès was one of the pseudonyms used by Félix-André-Yves Scantrel a French poet and critic....

, Léon Blum

Léon Blum

André Léon Blum was a French politician, usually identified with the moderate left, and three times the Prime Minister of France.-First political experiences:...

, Fernand Gregh

Fernand Gregh

Fernand Gregh was a French poet and literary critic....

, Charles Péguy

Charles Péguy

Charles Péguy was a noted French poet, essayist, and editor. His two main philosophies were socialism and nationalism, but by 1908 at the latest, after years of uneasy agnosticism, he had become a devout but non-practicing Roman Catholic.From that time, Catholicism strongly influenced his...

, Jérome Carcopino

Jérôme Carcopino

Jérôme Carcopino was a French historian and author. He was the fifteen member elected to occupy seat 3 of the Académie française in 1955.-Biography:...

, André Maurois

André Maurois

André Maurois, born Emile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog was a French author.-Life:Maurois was born in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. Maurois was the son of Ernest Herzog, a Jewish textile manufacturer, and Alice Herzog...

, Maurice Couve de Murville

Maurice Couve de Murville

Maurice Couve de Murville was a French diplomat and politician who was Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1958 to 1968 and Prime Minister from 1968 to 1969 under the presidency of General de Gaulle....

, Edgar Faure

Edgar Faure

Edgar Faure was a French politician, essayist, historian, and memoirist.-Career:Faure was born in Béziers, Languedoc-Roussillon. He trained as a lawyer in Paris and became a member of the Bar at 27, the youngest lawyer in France to do so at the time...

, Maurice Schumann

Maurice Schumann

Maurice Schumann was a French politician, journalist, writer, and hero of the Second World War who served as Minister of Foreign Affairs under Georges Pompidou in the 1960s and 1970s...

, Roger Nimier

Roger Nimier

-Life:He was born in 1925, and served in the French Army, specifically in the 2nd Hussard Regiment in the Second World War .He began to write quite early in his life...

, Laurent Schwartz

Laurent Schwartz

Laurent-Moïse Schwartz was a French mathematician. He pioneered the theory of distributions, which gives a well-defined meaning to objects such as the Dirac delta function. He was awarded the Fields medal in 1950 for his work...

, Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Charles Alexandre de Calonne

Charles Alexandre, vicomte de Calonne was a French statesman, best known for his involvement in the French Revolution.-Rise to prominence:...

, Maximilien de Robespierre, André Chénier

André Chénier

André Marie Chénier was a French poet, associated with the events of the French Revolution of which he was a victim. His sensual, emotive poetry marks him as one of the precursors of the Romantic movement...

, Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet

Jules Michelet was a French historian. He was born in Paris to a family with Huguenot traditions.-Early life:His father was a master printer, not very prosperous, and Jules assisted him in the actual work of the press...

, Victor Hugo

Victor Hugo

Victor-Marie Hugo was a Frenchpoet, playwright, novelist, essayist, visual artist, statesman, human rights activist and exponent of the Romantic movement in France....

, Auguste Blanqui, Charles Forbes René de Montalembert

Charles Forbes René de Montalembert

Charles Forbes René de Montalembert was a French publicist and historian.-Family history:He belonged to a family of Angoumois, which could trace its descent back to the 13th century. Charters carry the history of the house two centuries further...

, Évariste Galois

Évariste Galois

Évariste Galois was a French mathematician born in Bourg-la-Reine. While still in his teens, he was able to determine a necessary and sufficient condition for a polynomial to be solvable by radicals, thereby solving a long-standing problem...

, Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale

Henri d'Orléans, duc d'Aumale

-Bibliophile:He was a noted collector of old manuscripts and books. His library remains at Chantilly.-Death:By his will of the June 3, 1884, however, he had bequeathed to the Institute of France his Chantilly estate, including the Château de Chantilly, with all the art-collection he had collected...

, Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur

Louis Pasteur was a French chemist and microbiologist born in Dole. He is remembered for his remarkable breakthroughs in the causes and preventions of diseases. His discoveries reduced mortality from puerperal fever, and he created the first vaccine for rabies and anthrax. His experiments...

, Edmond About, Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol

Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol

Lucien-Anatole Prévost-Paradol was a French journalist and essayist.Prevost-Paradol was born in Paris, France, the son of an irregular liaison between the opera singer Lucinde Paradol and the writer Léon Halévy...

, Sadi Carnot

Sadi Carnot

Sadi Carnot may refer to:*Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot , French physicist*Marie François Sadi Carnot , president of the third French Republic, and nephew of Nicolas Léonard Sadi Carnot...

, Émile Faguet

Émile Faguet

Auguste Émile Faguet was a French author and literary critic.Faguet was born at La Roche-sur-Yon, and educated at the École normale supérieure in Paris. After teaching for some time in La Rochelle and Bordeaux, he returned to Paris to act as assistant professor of poetry in the university. He...

, Jules Lemaitre

Jules Lemaître

François Élie Jules Lemaître , was a French critic and dramatist.He was born at Vennecy . He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but was already well known for his literary criticism, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote his time to literature...

, Henri Bergson

Henri Bergson

Henri-Louis Bergson was a major French philosopher, influential especially in the first half of the 20th century. Bergson convinced many thinkers that immediate experience and intuition are more significant than rationalism and science for understanding reality.He was awarded the 1927 Nobel Prize...

, Alexandre Millerand

Alexandre Millerand

Alexandre Millerand was a French socialist politician. He was President of France from 23 September 1920 to 11 June 1924 and Prime Minister of France 20 January to 23 September 1920...

, Émile Chartier

Émile Chartier

Émile-Auguste Chartier, commonly known as Alain was a French philosopher, journalist, and pacifist.Alain entered lycée d'Alençon in 1881 and studied there for five years...

 (Alain), Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis

Maurice Denis was a French painter and writer, and a member of the Symbolist and Les Nabis movements. His theories contributed to the foundations of cubism, fauvism, and abstract art.-Childhood and education:...

, Édouard Herriot

Édouard Herriot

Édouard Marie Herriot was a French Radical politician of the Third Republic who served three times as Prime Minister and for many years as President of the Chamber of Deputies....

, Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry

Alfred Jarry was a French writer born in Laval, Mayenne, France, not far from the border of Brittany; he was of Breton descent on his mother's side....

, André Tardieu

André Tardieu

André Pierre Gabriel Amédée Tardieu was three times Prime Minister of France and a dominant figure of French political life in 1929-1932.-Biography:...

, Jean Giraudoux

Jean Giraudoux

Hippolyte Jean Giraudoux was a French novelist, essayist, diplomat and playwright. He is considered among the most important French dramatists of the period between World War I and World War II. His work is noted for its stylistic elegance and poetic fantasy...

, Jules Romains

Jules Romains

Jules Romains, born Louis Henri Jean Farigoule , was a French poet and writer and the founder of the Unanimism literary movement...

, René Huyghe

René Huyghe

René Huyghe was a French writer on the history, psychology and philosophy of art. He was also a curator at the Louvre's department of paintings , a professor at the Collège de France and from 1960 a member of the Académie française...

, Georges Pompidou

Georges Pompidou

Georges Jean Raymond Pompidou was a French politician. He was Prime Minister of France from 1962 to 1968, holding the longest tenure in this position, and later President of the French Republic from 1969 until his death in 1974.-Biography:...

, Antoine Blondin

Antoine Blondin

Antoine Blondin was a French writer.He belonged to the literary group called the Hussards. He was also a sports columnist in L'Équipe. Blondin also wrote under the name Tenorio.-Biography:...

, Louis Néel, Valérie Mangin