Lozère: the closure of three elementary classes confirmed despite protests

Europe 1 with AFP 1:51 p.m., March 2, 2024

Three elementary classes will be closed at the start of the next school year in Lozère, the least populated rural and mountainous department in France, despite protests from elected officials, parents and teachers' unions.

"At the end of the Departmental Council of National Education (CDEN) on Friday, the closure of a class in the schools of Marvejols, Langogne and Saint-Chély-d'Apcher is confirmed", indicated to AFP Friday evening the academic director of national education services for the department, Alexandre Falco.

Crucial maintenance for municipalities

For the year 2024-2025, National Education has decided that Lozère must “return” three teaching positions to strengthen the workforce in more populated areas of its academy such as Montpellier.

This net loss of teaching positions, which materialized in the closure of the three classes mentioned, had sparked protests.

For the mayors of these small towns, 2,875 inhabitants in Langogne, 4,700 in Marvejols, 4,200 in Saint-Chély d'Apcher, maintaining classes constitutes a crucial element in strengthening the attractiveness of their territory after years of rural exodus.

National Education, however, indicates that "for these three schools of large size for Lozère, the teaching ratios will increase from 14 students and less today per teacher to 16.5 on average per teacher at the start of the 2024 school year" (the national average being 22).

“We cannot only look at things through the prism of figures,” the mayor of Langogne argued ahead of the meeting, stressing that the school, which should certainly lose 20 students at the start of the school year (compared to 137 currently), welcomes a number of students with special educational needs: children with disabilities or allophones (newly arrived and with a foreign mother tongue), Lozère accommodating families seeking asylum.

Other unconfirmed closures 

“Our school has an enrollment which will not decrease next year, I am disappointed by this elimination. I regret that the government is making savings on Education which is a pillar of the Republic,” reacted Saturday to the AFP the mayor of Marvejols, Patricia Brémond.

On the other hand, the proposed closure of three other classes in three villages with fewer than 300 inhabitants, which had also sparked an outcry, has not been confirmed.

In Prévencheres, a town threatened by the closure of one of its two classes, a petition signed by more than 2,700 people warned that this would lead to "the establishment of a single class with 18 (... ) or even 21 students", the teacher finding himself with children from kindergarten to CM2.

“These decisions are the culmination of a dialogue carried out with elected officials and union organizations since November, they demonstrate special attention to small rural schools,” according to Falco.