Paris (AFP)

After two months of vacation, 12.4 million schoolchildren, high school and high school students start Monday in joy or stress a new school year, marked by the reform of high schools and the abandonment of series (L, ES and S).

For the third consecutive year, the government has maintained its "back to music" operation. He encourages schools to welcome children with "singing or concerts".

As every year, this day of recovery will be mixed with anguish and excitement, in children but also parents.

"My son started to stress a week before going back to school, with which mates will he be, what mistress ...?" Says Laure. His son Camille, who enters CM1 in Paris, is "tired of waiting" and wants to be fixed as soon as possible.

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

However, unlike the two previous years, President Emmanuel Macron will go to an institution not Monday but "in the coming weeks," said Sunday Mr. Blanquer at the "Grand Jury" RTL-Le Figaro-LCI.

The 871,000 teachers have, themselves, discovered their classrooms and learned their schedule (for secondary) from Friday, since they start their year a day before students.

"Even after ten comebacks, we always have the ball in the belly before D-Day ... And then everything ends up well," reassures Emilie, CP teacher in an establishment in Gennevilliers, in the Hauts-de -Seine.

Lowering to three years the age of compulsory education, continuing the decline in class sizes in disadvantaged neighborhoods or reform baccalaureate mark this fall.

- Deleted series -

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 this year for the students of first, who will be the first to pass the exam in its new form.

The S, ES and L series are deleted and replaced by specialties which require special arrangements.

This reform crystallized tensions at the time of the baccalaureate with a strike of some correctors. Several 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 adds.

The minister opened the door on Tuesday for changes to the high school reform during his press conference.

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 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.

In Paris, the return was postponed in five private schools to conduct new lead detection tests following the fire at Notre-Dame Cathedral.

© 2019 AFP