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A top American business school is courting British and European students by setting up a base in the Provence region of France.

Northwestern University's J. L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management has linked up with the Universite d'Aix-Marseille's Institut d'Administration des Entreprises to provide a part-time, two-year executive MBA programme from January 1997.

Only 10 per cent of the students are expected to be French because of the monopoly on business education exercised by Paris's famous Institut Europeen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD). The rest would come from Britain, Holland, Belgium and the Nordic countries.

Earlier this month, Donald Jacobs, dean of the American school, stopped over in London on his way to the Far East to promote the idea to the multinational companies rich enough to stump up the tuition fee of $48,000 (Pounds 30,000).

The course, he said, will boast "the best of both worlds", American and European. Over the years, Kellogg, appropriating the Japanese methods of "lean" and "just-in-time" management, has pioneered the partnership idea. The Aix courses, said Dean Jacobs, have championed "change management".

Between 1988 and 1992 Kellogg was rated the top business school by Business Week, but slipped to second place in 1994. The new course could see Kellogg reclaim its reputation for eating rival business schools for breakfast.