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I worked locally at CERN from 2012 to 2014 (was on leave from my university at that time). I am actually working with many people physically there, and I still have an office there, as a (theorist) member of one of the LHC collaboration. But my home institution is now in Paris.

Also, As a particle physicist is the "standard model" taught in school even close to reality?

At the university, yes (at the master level in France, for instance). I taught it myself for years, for instance.