"Quite on the contrary," France's education minister, Vincent Peillon told France 2. "It's the difference between patriots and nationalists: nationalists have always abdicated; they think France is great when it cuts itself off Patriotism is a France that is sure of itself." Libération agreed, warning: "Let's stop behaving like the last representatives of a Gaulish village under siege." Antoine Compagnon, professor at the highly prestigious Collège de France and at the University of Columbia in the US, said the row confused two separate issues – improving the English of university teachers and researchers to boost their international standing and making French universities more attractive for foreign students. In the first case, he suggested a spell in an English-speaking country would be best.