Starting Block: French billionaire funds free school to fill tech skills gap

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Now to France, where President Emmanuel Macron is offering grants to entrepreneurs from all around the world, and Ecole 42 is part of that. It's gaining a reputation for producing both talent and entrepreneurship. Last year, it attracted 70 thousand applicants from around the world -- for its 900 openings. Elena Casas takes a look at why.

Open just three years, this is Paris' most sought after programming school. But the students learning to code here didn't win their placement through conventional assessment exams.

NICOLAS SADIRAC CO-FOUNDER AND DIRECTOR, ECOLE 42 "We select students essentially via cognitive tests online, checking their brains work in the right way. We absolutely don't care if they passed their high school exams or not, or if they come from a scientific background, or if they've never studied sciences before."

Anyone age 18 to 30 can apply - about ten percent of students come from abroad. The school gets around 80 online applications for every place.

ELENA CASAS PARIS "The students behind me are on an intensive 4-week training program to see if they have what it takes to be the coders of the future. The best third will be selected to go on to the school's three-year course."

Audrey Roemer is one of those students with no scientific background at all. She was studying for a possible career in the travel industry when she found out about Ecole 42.

AUDREY ROEMER STUDENT "That's what I love about 42, there are ex-military people, there are gardeners - for me, the interdisciplinary is important, because you learn so much more when you meet people from different fields, so I think it's very complementary."

There are plenty of jobs for the school's graduates, as France is enjoying a tech boom. Paris recently launched the world's biggest purpose built start-up campus - and a third of Ecole 42's students go on to launch their own companies. A number of tech firms, like online retailer Vente-privee, work with the school to offer students internships - and advice for starting their own businesses.

JULIEN MANGEARD CTO, VENTE-PRIVEE "The advantage of hiring Ecole 42 students is that they're used to working on projects autonomously, but in a team, so at the end of their studies we have new students who have already developed lots of things by themselves."

And France is actively embracing other efforts to promote coding skills. Facebook recently launched a program, in partnership with the French state, to digitally train some 65-thousand unemployed people. The government hopes a highly skilled workforce will encourage more tech firms to set up shop here in France. Elena Casas, CGTN, Paris.