Seeing as I groped and stumbled my way through the lack of information about this, I decided to post my experience of doing 1st year medicine at the University of Nice (from an American's point of view).
The best overall description of medical studies in France that I've found is from Campus France:http://editions.campusfrance.org/filieres/en/medecine_en.pdf

WHAT YOU ARE GETTING YOURSELF INTO
Unlike in the U.S., French high school students go straight to med school -- noin-between B.A. degree. There is no entrance exam or application process for FRENCH students. ALL French high school students who apply are admitted freely into the first year of med school or "PCEM1" or "P1". However, there is a quota for the number of students ("numerus clausus") who can go on to the 2nd year ("PCEM2" or "P2"). This was instigated by the Frenchgovernment in an attempt to reduce national health-related costs (which includes education).
Thus, P1 is a competition year where you sit through classes and take exams ("concours") in December and May according to which you are ranked. Theexams are mostly multiple-multiple choice questions (causality, groupedresponses) with the exception of humanities which is essay based (6 15-minute,200-max-word essays).The numerus clausus changes from school to school. At the University of Nice, the figure has been around 130 places for doctors. For the academic year 2008-2009, nearly 2000 students initially enrolled, over 900 students dropped out around October (deadline for partial fee refund), leaving the remaining to scrabble for the 130 places. Dentists, physiotherapists,midwives are also thrown into the same program the first year (I don't remember the allotments for them) -- you actually fill in a "choice" sheet where you rank your choices: medicine, midwivery, physiotherapy, dentistry,or repeat the year.
Note that in 2010, there is going to be a reform in med schools in France (initial elimination after the 1st exams in December, separating the different health professions, curriculum overhaul)

As a non-EU national, you will have to APPLY for a place (see APPLYING below). Note, that if your application is successful, it merely allows you to enroll like the rest of the French high school students, but you go through the same grueling elimination process.
Unless you have a photographic memory, P1 is 8 months of nonstop studying, cramming details, often presented in very non-pedagogically desirable order (1st week in one class you will learn about things based on your knowledge of organic chem which you won't have til the 2nd semester). I dunno maybe there's a different curriiculum in French high schools....
They will give you the stats on the first day of class: * no guarantees that you will make the cut even if you paid for private tutoring ("prepa" -- which can cost around €2-3k) * the older you are, the less likely you are to succeed* you are officially allowed to repeat the 1st year once -- but much less than half of the 2nd timers ("doublants") make it through the 2nd time. This year there were about 200-300 repeaters. Via special dean request, you can repeat a 2nd time ("triplant")
* having high honors in high school does not seem to put you at an avantage over other students
* ALL of the students who did make the cut had only 1 thing in common: they gave up ALL recreational activities and studied every moment of their timeYou will hear stories of students getting nerve damage and such a badcase of hemorrhoids that they had to drop out.
Half the time, there's no time to understand or do extra reading that most American students would be used to -- not all, but most of the profs say literally, "Do not bother understanding just memorize this word for word". There are some great profs otherwise, though....There are so many students that initially, students are divided into 3 lecture halls over 2 campuses (St. Jean d'Angely and Pasteur): * Amphi 1 at St. Jean d'Angely campus: * where professors lecture * the fresh out of high schoolers
* Amphi 2 at St. Jean d'Angely campus: * the doublants* Amphi 5 at the Pasteur campus * the overflow doublants as well as primants (1st timers)
* and other mishmash riftrafters like us foreigners
Amphi 2 and Amphi 5 basically get a live video feed from Amphi 1. After the dropouts in October, the students from Amphi 5 are squashed into Amphi 2.Your student card is stamped with the lecture hall you're assigned to, and entrance into the lecture halls are monitored. However, I found this absolutely frustrating. Repeaters talk a lot -- there is no regulation in these overflow lecture halls even if the appariteurs are there. Technical difficulties are very frequent. Some profs have continued lectures despite no broadcast in the other lecture halls! Very few classes have textbooks, and the course material IS the lecture, so this is ABSOLUTELY frustrating.As the year goes on, you will see class attendance drop exponentially. There is a possibility to then go to the Amphi 1 and actually see what your profs look like....you will have to sweet talk the appariteur there, but usually by the last month of class, half of Amphi 2 have made their way into Amphi 1....Emotions and stress run very high. A couple of months into the course, you will get strippers, flashers, "practical jokes" saying class was cancelled when it wasn't, people stealing professor question-answer sheets.Cliques already have formed between people from the same high school and the such. Competition is tough. Do not be surprised if no one smiles or says hullo...or if they talk to you, it's only because they want to borrow something or get by you out of the seating row. I have been warned by people who had classmates who totally changed when they started 1st year med school and to never trust a fellow student, because everybody is supercompetitive and you are just someone who can steal their place (I dunno how true that is, though....)More info about 1st year med school in general is like:http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCEM1


APPLYING
if you already did a bio/health related degree and want to do medicine:It is possible to apply directly to 3rd year medical studies ("DCEM"/"D1"I don't know too much about the details, but the deadline is around July.You will need to write a motivation letter and provide the usual documents(CV, diplomas, sample research paper, that sort of thing). It goes throughsome national jury, I think, and you get notified in late summer.
applying directly to 1st year/ P1:Officially, you should fill out a Dossier Vert which you submit to the schoolyou're applying to with the documents detailed in the application.
More info:http://www.education.gouv.fr/cid2473/-dossier-vert-demande-prealable-a-une-inscription-en-premier-cycle-dans-une-universite-francaise.html
For my case, I needed AT LEAST the following documents:* high school diploma* high school grades if possible (but doesn't seem obligatory)* French residency papers / carte de sejour* passport* French social security papers showing your dependency on someone who will guarantee your financial independence during the year
* birth certificate/marriage certificate whichever showing parents names* motivation letter (part of dossier vert)* 2 photosNOTE: I submitted my application well after the deadline on the Dossier Vert, but they took the application without any comment.
As a non-EU member, you belong to category #5 (the last category) to be considered admittance. When the jury has decided on your application, you will be notified of the results of your application as late as the week before and no more than 2 weeks before school starts in Sept/Oct.
One sure advantage of studying medicine in France is the cost: 1st year fees cost a little over €200 for the year!
Some details on the Medicine Faculty at University Nice's website:http://medecine.unice.fr/RepAccueil
The page does not get updated toooo often...only essentials like resultsfrom the concours, school schedule, upcoming competitions....

Preparations before school starts:Already in July before the school year has started, French high school studentsgo through free tutorials and mock exams hosted by senior med school students.They recommend learning at least one subject even before the year startsto relieve the pressure off yourself during the year. Of course, you as a foreigner, you won't know whether you will even be able to enroll until September....I personally found out on the Thursday to betold that I either go in the day after on Friday to register or I give up my enrollment rights, and that school started the following Monday.
The month before school starts, there is also another round of tutorials andmock exams ("tut'rentree").
Info/registration here:http://www.tutoratnicois.com/
Senior students also post summary review sheets for certain subjects on this website. The "forum" link is an open forum where you can pose questionsto the tutors.
As the dean's secretary said in her welcome speech on the first day: "for those of you who didn't go to these tutorialsin the summer, you are already way behind."

Resources during the school year they don't always tell you about:
Pretty good description of the details of classes in the curriculum at the University of Nice:http://www.remede.org/spip/article814.html
Basically, almost all the courses are based on the notes you take in class andreaders that you buy from the faculty secretary(Notice the links on the webpage above where certain professors have putall their class material online)
There are only 2 things I would add to the info on that page is * there is a new molecular biology prof who started this year. His style ofteaching is very American: the lecture is not where you write everythingdown (so he does go quick if you are trying to jot every single word), as he expects you to look at the textbook (accessible free online throughNIH.gov). He wanted to give us a test where we interpreted experimentalresults, so testing our logic based on what we learned in class, but therewas such opposition that he didn't in the end...to my consternation....for mehe was an excellent prof though despite the overall annoyance of the French students.
* the biochem course is strongly based on Lippincott's IllustratedReviews
http://books.google.fr/books?id=Pm7_fECJHcQC&printsec=frontcover&dq=lippincott's+illustrated+reviews+biochemistry&hl=en
One of the 3 profs for biochem at the start of the year does not provide printed support -- you copy everything in class, i.e. molecular structures and diagrams. Everybody gets frustrated cos they can't see the subscriptscos the projection is too dark...and he gets impatient and removes the slidebefore people are finished copying. Bring a camera or look at the previewof this book -- the diagrams he uses are directly take from it.


They will tell you about the tutorat hosted by senior med students
http://www.tutoratnicois.com/
which is basically sessions of mock exams 1-2 times a week in the eveningson 2 subjects per week. Once in awhile, a professor will be at one of thesesessions (usually the chem, ochem and histology profs).


However, there are other resources they don't tell you about and you have to go digging in the forums to find out if you don't knowanyone....such as

* la Ronéo : notes taken by senior studentsAs part of the Association des Etudiants en Medecine de Nice (http://carabinsnicois.fr/), senior students offer a note taking service called la Ronéo, for a selected number of (not all) classes. For me, these were a godsend to fill in the blanks when I couldn't hear over the clatter of the doublants, due tothe limitations of my French, or the many technical difficulties where we heard nothing in the overflow lecture halls.
However, do not completely rely on these notes, as quality does range from notetaker to notetaker, and they run into technical difficulties, too...
by the way almost all students come to class equipped with cameras and taperecorders...though I didn't do this, I wish I had and highly recommend it.
In order to get the Roneo: during the first week of class the AEMN will setup camp outside the lecture halls. Bring* a check (something like €20 membership)* 2 photosYou will then be a member of AEMN, so then you can go to the printing storeat the edge of the St. Jean d'Angely campus to pick up notes from the previous week (after showing your card and paying whatever costs wereincurred in the actual photocopying of the notes, usually around €2-3.
* reader of anatomy drawings available at the photocopy place on the Pasteur campusThe anatomy professor draws everything live on the blackboard, but he writes nothing down and goes very quickly. Tutoring schools usually recommend that you take notes in pairs -- one person draws the diagram and the other person writes down what he says. In this reader, which is a photocopy of most of the drawings (hand-drawn) that appear in the anat prof's lectures...with labels! Don't subject yourself to the frustration of missing most of what he says and not knowing what to write down even if you heard him cos you had no idea how to spell what he said. And don'texpect the terms in the roneo to be spelled correctly either....
Another reason to bring a tape recorder if you're all on your lonesome....

* past examsFor the life of me, I could not gauge what sort of questions or level of detail I needed to know the material in. I found out too late when Iwent to my first tutorat. What a shocker. Get the pastexams and start doing them SOON to get a feeler! You only have "travaux diriges" biweekly for chem and ochem; these are basicallylike discussion sections in the U.S. where you are shown how to work problems. For the other classes, you're on your own to find problems andknow what you should know: I wish I had used these past exams like "homework" from the beginning....
You can get past exams in at least 3 forms, so I learned too late: * Les annales * where to get it: from the reprint counter at the Medicine Faculty itself.
* you can buy each year separately * only contains the questions, no answers because apparently the
faculty is legally not allowed to publish answers
* Anna potch - or something like that...I've never seen it * where to get it: I've no idea -- I guess some photocopy store
* exams from the previous 5 years, with detailed solutions
* Annathemes
* where to get it: the photocopy store on the Pasteur campus
(where you get the reader for anatomy drawings)
* in 2 volumes
* exams from the previous 10 years, with an answer key only
(no explanations)
* beware, there are lots of mistakes/typos....

Some of the private prep tutoring schools also have published their ownstuff...like worked out chem problems and the like. These are available mostlyat the photocopy place "Fac Copy" beside St. Jean d'Angely, I believe.
Note on the library at St. Jean d'Angely: if you don't want to buy the physics and biophysics textbooks (which are FULL of typos!!!! absolutely frustrating. Did they not have editors???), just borrow a copy from the library. The library for P1 basically carries about a dozen copy of every possible P1 prep books there are....you can only take out a book for 2 weeks, but with the amount of double copies there are....
________________________________________________
Don't do what I did wrong: I read a lot on the side to supplement the material, to make sense of what I was being presented.You will see that the sheer volume of the material they throw at you is so great and the detail of the questions they ask can be so deep, that there is just no time for that. Don't do it. At least only look up things if it is totallyunclear. Focus exactly on what they give you. Once you get more than 2 weeks behind, you're in the slumps. More than a month behind, and you're a goner. There is absolutely no way to catch up.You don't even get all the vacation days that the university in general does.
This is a game, and for once, I realized that I couldn't play by my own rules:you play by their rules, or you're out.
There you go. I hope this will be useful for someone....and so someone outthere can use my experience to avoid the sheer frustration I felt. I'm sureif you did a word count on how many times I used the word, I'd get thecigar for using it so often in one go.

I wish whoever who decides to do 1st year med school in France lots and lots of luck!!! and bon courage! Do not become discouraged....youwill see lots of people around you become quickly buried under.
If you can keep in mind all the pitfalls I tried to point out...I'm sure thereare more, but this is what I learned... I think it might be possibly enjoyable in the end -- there are some wonderful profs (as well as some unmentionableones), and anyway, just one great one may make it worth it.

unfortunately the formatting got all messed up and my message is not displayed as i composed it...so the info might not be so clear...anyway, i'll be more than happy to answer any questions anyone has about P1

Nymphnode,

Sounds like a very trying year indeed but it sounds like you are very dedicated to becoming a Doctor so I wish you the best of luck. I do not think you said did you get into P2 or do you not know yet.

hi carolnice,
i just had the final set of my exams yesterday, and results are not out til july...but i'm pretty sure i botched this year up royally, and i'm now looking at plan b. i'm not going to repeat. if anything, i think my academic french listening comprehension has improved, and i've clocked up 8k km of motorbike experience this year. so all's not lost.
thanks....

Your description was pretty accurate. My daughter who was born in the States but grew up in France (moved here when she was 4 years old) is now finishing her 4th year at the Fac de Med in Nice. She was ranked 81/900+ in her first year . The majority of students who succeed in the first year have the "prepa" courses, but I could not afford it so she did everything on her own. She redid her 3rd year however, because she did not feel ready to be an "externe" in the hospital starting in the 4th year. It was a good decision because this year has been a success both psychologically and professionally.

She went through a VERY VERY difficult time at the end of her second year which I feel was due to all the accumulated stress from Year 1. She has a great network of friends at the Fac de Med , both in her year and Years 5 and 6 , who have been a strong support system for her throughout.

It will be worth it in the end, but it took a tremendous toll on her --and on me and her sister. If any of your children decide to go this route just be aware of the enormous amount of stress there is---- but it is doable and it can be done without paying several thousand euros a month for additional tutoring.

to post my reply to some questions i've received...
clarification: the dossier vert is for non-EU citizens residing in france. there are different dossier "colors" for different situations. e.g. as a non EU citizen not residing in france, you need the dossier bleu and don't submit the app directly to the school
more info here:http://medecine.unice.fr/RepEtudes/RepInscriptions/RepEtudiants%20Etrangers/

for practicing doctors who want to be certified in france, these pages might be useful (but note i have no clue or personal knowledge about this):http://www.cng.sante.fr/spip.php?article76
http://www.sante.gouv.fr/emplois/dhos/internat/med_etran/inscription.pdf


as for the "older you are, more likely you won't make the cut" stats they tell us about the 1st on what seems to correlate with success of 1st year med school:these were just stats that the dean/dean's secretary cited to us on the numerous surveys they've done. i would not be surprised that their studies were very superficial and that they didn't investigate further into possible confounding factors, e.g. maybe the older people were also people who had families (less time, had to run household), foreigners, etc.
i know of one story of a 28-year-old french girl who had a degree in IT and had always wanted to be a doctor. she tried to get a grant from CROUS, i think, and her application was turned down cos the jury thought it was ridiculous that someone her age should launch into such lengthy studies. she placed in the top 5%
in her 1st year.

Thanks for writing about your experience, very insightful.

I was wanting to go and study medicine in France (I am an Australian) but I was worried about language difficulties. I did live in France during a gap year after high school and speak French well, but obviously I have no idea about all the medical terminology in French. What was your French like, did you find it a real problem understanding your classes in French?