Just to clarify something : Université in france is a very special type of public educational entity, that for example does research. In no way can any private school pretend to be one.

I was surprised to learn that main technical companies in France do not really care for most French university exact kind of diplomas, when they care for specific diplomas it is from a reduced set of organizations, and they pay well in that case.

For French universities, what they care for is the level of the diploma (graduate/master/phd) but frankly they often do not care about the diploma itself.

I have seen PhD people been recruited at a lower pay than engineers that graduated from Supelec for example.

yeap. This is due to the way students are selected after high school. engineering schools are much difficult to enter than universities ( because universities in france theorically don’t have the right to select first year students based on grades... yeah i know...)

So, the most valued way to do research in france is actually to first do one of those highly competitive schools first, then go to university for a phd.

But culturally, companies pay a lot more attention to the kind of engineering school you’ve been to than to your phd.

The diploma is not recognized by the French gov or any European institution. At this time, finishing your 3 years at 42 grants you a line in your resume but that's pretty much it. you wont be able to claim any type of degree with it

On the other hand, French companies love it!