[pascalmahe]

For the racism part: France, as an ex-empire, is very attractive to its former colonies' students. And we have agreements to make it easier for them to come. So we get many students from Africa or the Middle East, often on merits and/or scholarships. In my engineering school, there were students from Turkey, Sudan (might be South Sudan now)...

Raising the price of tuition will mostly impact people from these countries rather than people from other European or American countries.

[LunaSea]

So because France had colonies they now have an obligation to take in foreign students?

[justAlittleCom]

It's a moral obligation, yes. Plus, it's still nowadays a very powerful lever to keep relationship with local elites.