Martin & Marseille

Cryptic title? Well, it's not correct, anyway. I will write a comparison, that's true, but it's extremely subjective.
First of all, I can't really compare the universities as such. I can only compare my personal experience in both of them. Which is, of course, heavily biased towards Karlsruhe because I spent more time there. In other words, this will be completely unreliable as a objective comparison.

First of all, let's have a look at the systems in general. In Germany, in order to study at a university, you need Abitur (what you get when you graduate from High School, usually at the age of 18-19). For an engineer, the formalities are simply. You can basically choose you university, fill in a form or two and you're in. A Master's equivalent degree (which used to be the Diplom, now we do a Master too) typically takes around 5 years to complete. Well, that's what the universities say. The guidelines for exams are really quite loose, and most students take longer to complete their degree. EE students at my uni finish on average after 11.5 semesters, while the official number of semesters you should need (We call it Regelstudienzeit) is 10. As I said, the rules are simple: You have to do a required number of exams, a diploma thesis and other stuff like 6 months of internship. You rarely have to turn up to lectures - if you can pass the exam without lectures, that's fine.
The first two years are pretty much the same for everyone (who decides to stick to the suggested curriculum) and consist of basics in mathematics, physics, logic, electronics and such lark. You may take up to 6 semesters to do all these exams, but you can also start taking other exams before you've finished. One important reason for this period is to reduce the number of students to a level which can be more easily coped with (not officially, of course). The number of students usually drops around 30-50% in my degree. Plus, if you've managed this phase you know you're clever enough to manage the rest. After that, you can start to diversify. The longer you study, the more freedom you get in choosing your subjects. Then, when you've done enough exams and you feel like it, you can do your diploma thesis which concludes your degree.

In France, the system is quite different. First of all, the universities as we have them here are not exactly the top of the educational system. The top notch comes from the Grandes Ecoles, and the Ecoles Centrales have quite good reputation. Getting into one of these is not that easy (except for Erasmus students). First of all, after you've done your bac (which is the equivalent to the Abitur, but French students are usually a year younger when they graduate), you can either go to uni or apply for the Classe Preparatoire (well, there are other options, but let's stick to these. Besides, I don't really know the system that well). If you want to go to a Ecole Centrale or likewise, you need Classe Prepa.
According to the people I asked, this must be the most horrible time in a students life. It usually goes on for 2 years and, like our Vordiplom (the first phase I talked about), teaches basics in maths, physics or whatever you need for your university (It depends on what you want to do after Classe Prepa, if you want to do economics you get other courses). I have no reason not to believe all the people who told me they had practically no free time, got bad marks no matter how good they were and so on.
Plus, it costs. You can't just sign up, you need to pay up, too. Obviously, you can't work the same time... so poor guys without scholarships will have a hard time here. But the thing is, if you pass, you really know some stuff. I had class with 12 other Prepa graduates, and most of them could do Fourier Transforms in their heads. Now, I personally believe that this is not exactly a skill worth having, but it does speed up lectures if basic mathematics can be considered understood.

The degree at Ecole Centrale takes three years. Practically everything is planned out for you, more like school than a German university - including sports and languages. The education is way more broad than that of a German engineer: There are courses for economics and even human resource management. Everything is taught, including programming. Most of these things are considered non-scientific in Germany, which means: students can teach themselves. So, this is a big difference: At Ecole Centrale, students are a lot more in classes, but they have less stuff to do at home than in Germany.
Before getting to year three, there are very little choices to be made: which languages you want to learn, which type of sport you'll do, little things like this.

Another reason this comparison is pretty subjective is the huge difference between degrees. In Germany, I am an EE student, with very little non-engineer subjects. After graduating, I'm supposed to know a little of all EE subjects and a great deal about one specific EE topic. Graduates from ECM (Ecole Centrale Marseille) are called Ingenieurs Generaliste - generalist engineer. The idea is, you know the basics of everything: computer science, chemistry, physics, mechanical engineering, programming, electronics, signal processing... and so on. In 3rd year, you can specialise and get 6 months of subject-specific courses - but also courses everyone has to take, management stuff and that lark. You are educating future leaders, not specialists. It probably compares better to our Wirtschaftsingenieur, a mix between economics and engineering.

What I miss in Germany's universities (and possibly had too much of in France's) is loyalty towards the Alma Mater. When the University of Karlsruhe was declared 'Elite', everyone took the mick out of it. When ECM went 'Centrale', everyone was proud like someone very proud. In France, the effect is that the university creates a huge network: former students of this (or other) Ecoles Centrales bond. If your degree says 'Ecole Centrale' on the top, people won't start having a look at your grades.

Extra-curricular activities are tightly integrated into the Ecole-life, too. Of course these are not compulsory, but the main principle is to create a tight group anyway, so most people show up to at least some of the clubs, parties, concerts, theatre performances and whatever else there is. German students usually do a lot of extra-curricular things too, but all the organisations are a lot more independent; many people often do things in clubs which have nothing to do with the university at all. Again, it's more individual here and less a sense of community. I could not decide which is better...