Yeah... That's not wrong.

On the other hand, those kind of "fake" internships are rampant here in France, specially with smaller companies or startups. From personal experience they don't bother checking their work. And how could they, the other employees are interns too.

I used to work in France, I was employed by a French company. I do remember the contractors that were French were pretty disgruntled. But I certainly miss being over there. The work culture is so much better than in the US. The pay may be suppressed, but at least everyone gets to enjoy life. Although, at the company I worked at, the pay was not as far off from the US side as the French folks thought it was. Definitely not when you consider how much better they were treated.

Same in Poland - none of my friends who did their required internship at studies was ever actually taught anything.

It was always just "do your job, don't cause problems".

And for free. Of course. My uni literally bans us from being paid. If we do, they won't acknowledge it as internship.

"My uni literally bans us from being paid. If we do, they won't acknowledge it as internship. "

Could there be any explanation for such a rule, that is not corruption and exploitation? I cannot think of any.

I have no idea. It is what is is... :/

Cynically it feels to me like it's just a nice way for the companies nearby to get free labor.

My assumption for that is just that it's just supposed to be an internship somewhere where our focus would be to study and thus we shouldn't get any benefits from it, but I've never heard of it working that way. It was always in IT here just being an unpaid junior.