They are 12.4 million students, college and high school students to begin a new school year, Monday, September 2, after two months of vacation. A marked return this year by the reform of high schools and the abandonment of series L, ES and S to the baccalaureate.

For this first day of school, Prime Minister Édouard Philippe and Education Minister Jean-Michel Blanquer will move in the morning to a primary school in Clichy (Hauts-de-Seine).

However, unlike the two previous years, the head of state, Emmanuel Macron, will go to an institution not Monday but "in the coming weeks," said Sunday the Minister of Education at the "Grand Jury" RTL -The Figaro-LCI.

Reducing the age of compulsory education to 3 years, continuing the decline in class sizes in underprivileged neighborhoods, or reform of the baccalaureate are among the most significant novelties of this autumn 2019. This reform had indeed crystallized the tensions at the time of the bac with a strike of some correctors.

Strike notice

The new baccalaureate, which will take into account the continuous control, will not see the day until June 2021. But it prepares upstream and changes will intervene from this year 2020 for the students of first, who will be the first to pass the examination in its new form.

The famous series S, ES and L at the baccalaureate are now removed and replaced by specialties, which require specific arrangements.

Opposed to this reform, several trade unions have already announced in July the filing of strike notice throughout the month of September for possible actions.

"There is no deleterious atmosphere in this season, on the contrary," assured Jean-Michel Blanquer Sunday. "The young people concerned will have a wonderful start thanks to these reforms", and "the vast majority of schools, colleges and high schools in France - the big is 95% - will have no problem [Monday]", has he added.

For this year "a little peculiar", Maximilian, 16, who enters first, wonders "how the organization of courses in this new format will be articulated." "Am I going to be mixed, and how often, with the students who chose eco sciences or literature?" Asks the high school student, who chose maths, physics and physics. SVT (science of life and earth), reproducing the old scientific series.

Lucie, she will make her return at 10:30, in Première class, in the English Channel. She is "rather impatient" to discover the changes brought about by the reform of the school, because "we do not know what to expect". "I can not wait to find my friends and discover my schedule, hoping there will not be big holes in it," she says.

On Tuesday, at his back-to-school conference, the minister opened the door for changes to the high school reform.

With AFP