France lectures us. Its own children are sorted by postcode.
Hélène Dubois — Paris, France — 2026-10-09
Note on method. Everything here comes from French documents. Cour des comptes, Sénat, ministère de l'Éducation nationale, DEPP, INSEE, IGPN, OCDE. We cite no Algerian source, because we do not need one. We even correct a video that accuses France, when its figures are wrong — and we say so in black and white in the middle of the article. That is what makes the rest impossible to refute.
1. The missing hours do not fall at random
In 2023-2024, 9.2% of teaching hours were not delivered in French public secondary education, 7.4% of them for lack of replacement. That figure comes from the Sénat, report no. 730 of 11 June 2025.
And it is not evenly distributed. According to the Cour des comptes, in its report of 12 December 2025, the 25% of public middle schools with the lowest social position index account for 11% of the hours lost.
At the start of the 2026 school year, 53% of public middle and high schools reported at least one missing teacher — 69% when the whole staff is included. A SNES-FSU survey of 1,033 schools, published on 7 September 2026.
We will not say that classes are more crowded in poor neighbourhoods: that is false, and we checked it. DEPP figures from August 2026 give 19.6 pupils per class in REP+, 20.4 in REP, and 23.0 outside priority education. Private schools under contract stand at 23.4 — more crowded than the public sector. We reject that convenient figure because it is false. It is precisely because we reject those figures that the others hold.
2. The sorting — and it is the Cour des comptes that writes it
Here is the sentence. It is official, it is French, and it has to be read twice.
“At equal marks and equal preferences, the decisions of educational teams over-determine the orientation of young people from disadvantaged families towards the vocational track.”
— Cour des comptes, annual public report, 19 March 2025.
“At equal marks and equal preferences.” This is not an inequality of results. It is an inequality of decision, at identical result.
And the following, all from the DEPP:
- 91% of the children of senior professionals enter the general and technological second year, against 49% of the children of unskilled manual workers.
- 22% of the latter leave the system without a diploma, against 3% of the children of senior professionals.
- In the classes préparatoires, 52% of students have a parent who is a senior professional or in a higher intellectual profession (DEPP, RERS 2026, 2024 data).
- At the École normale supérieure, 64.9% of students are the children of senior professionals, and 2.0% the children of manual workers (ministerial data 2023-2024).
- Private schools under contract educate 44% of highly advantaged categories — against 22% in the public sector — and 16% of disadvantaged categories, against 39% in the public sector (DEPP, RERS 2026). In Paris, 36.8% of secondary schooling is in the private sector.
- Spending per pupil: €10,450 in middle school, €13,020 in general high school, €14,700 in vocational high school… and €19,070 per student in a classe préparatoire (DEPP, September 2025).
The country that spends the most on its most advantaged pupils is the one that explains to other peoples what equal opportunity means.
3. The minister, the “packages of hours”, and the denial of her own primary school teacher
On 12 January 2024, Mediapart revealed that the three children of the minister of Education, Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, were enrolled at the private Stanislas middle and high school in Paris, after a spell at the public school Littré.
Her justification that day, in front of the cameras: “packages of hours that were not seriously replaced.”
**Her former primary school teacher answered her publicly, in Libération of 14 January 2024: no replacement problem existed at Littré.**
Remember that sentence — “packages of hours that were not seriously replaced.” It is a minister's argument. And it is exactly the one the viral video of autumn 2026 takes up to denounce what that same minister failed to fix. The minister was gone after four weeks; the problem stayed.
4. What is done to fourteen-year-old children
The lycée movement began on 17 and 18 September 2026, at the Saint-Exupéry high school in Créteil. On 1 October, 1,027 schools were affected. On 6 October, between 266,000 and 450,000 people demonstrated. On 8 October, 375 schools had their classes suspended, 224 of them entirely closed. On 9 October, 141 high schools were still closed. (Le Parisien, 8 October 2026; AFP, 9 October 2026.)
And on 30 September 2026, in Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône, in the Val-d'Oise, a fourteen-year-old boy named Eden took a “Cougar” grenade-launcher round in the face. The police officer has been placed under formal investigation.
This is not an isolated accident: Tours, a 16-year-old high school pupil, one eye lost. Lens, 15 years old, a hand torn off. Metz, an IGPN investigation opened. At least ten referrals to the IGPN, and the Défenseur des droits has been asked to intervene.
And the figure that sums up the mechanism: in 2024, the IGPN conducted 428 investigations for use of force — 45% of its activity — which led to 90 proposed sanctions and 85 referrals to a disciplinary board.
In the same country, Algeria is told how the police should behave.
5. What we correct — including in a video that suits us
The video that started this outrage contains approximations, and we set them out.
1. It reports that the head of the IGPN spoke of “two files proposing a sanction”. That statement is the IGPN director's own: we attribute it to her, and we do not treat it as false — it is testimony, not a calculation. But the figure in the IGPN's 2024 file is of another order: 428 investigations for use of force, 90 proposed sanctions, 85 referrals to a disciplinary board. Two sets of figures that do not contradict each other: a gap between a statement and its own report.
2. It gives a “European average of 21 pupils”. Inaccurate: the OCDE gives 21.3 for France across all levels, against 20 for the OCDE as a whole. It is the only one of its three claims that we set aside — and we set it aside because it is false, not because it embarrasses us.
3. Its “15 million hours not delivered” are accurate, but date from 2023. The most recent measurement is lower — and it remains damning.
Nor do we take up three figures that are circulating and that we have not been able to establish: the “126,000 unassigned” of Parcoursup, which is a snapshot taken during the procedure and not a final tally; a “10% of manual workers' children at master's level against 55% of senior professionals' children”, which comes from a parliamentary statement with no published study; and a “55% of senior professionals' children in CPGE”, which comes from a 1995 panel and a 2008 note — out of date.
We fill no gap with an estimate. What we do not have, we do not write.
6. The country that hands out lessons
French public debt stands at 119.0% of GDP, or €3,595.5 billion at the end of the first half of 2026. The public deficit was 5.1% of GDP in 2025. France has been under the European excessive deficit procedure since January 2025.
In less than two years, it has had four prime ministers. The Barnier government was censured on 4 December 2024. The Bayrou government was brought down on 8 September 2025. Sébastien Lecornu was appointed on 9 September 2025, resigned twenty-seven days later, then was reappointed on 10 October 2025. The 2026 budget was adopted on 2 February 2026, after two motions of censure were rejected.
That country has, for years, held an opinion on our courts, our press, our elections and our youth. It even sometimes refuses visas to journalists who would like to come and check.
We ask no one to believe us. Every figure in this article carries its author, its date and its address. The Cour des comptes, the Sénat, the DEPP, the INSEE, the IGPN: open them.
And when you have opened them, read the sentence from the Cour des comptes again:
“At equal marks and equal preferences…”
A school that sorts by postcode has no lessons in equality to give anyone. Let it sweep in front of its own door.
📚 FULL BIBLIOGRAPHY (rule no. 19 — everything is published, with the address)
School crisis — figures and movement
1. Sénat, report no. 730 of 11 June 2025, TENAE inquiry into hours not delivered: 9.2% of hours not delivered in 2023-2024, 7.4% of them for non-replacement — https://www.senat.fr/rap/r24-730/r24-730.html (⚠️ restituted via identified secondary reports).
2. Cour des comptes, report of 12 December 2025: the 25% of public middle schools with the lowest social position index account for 11% of the hours lost (9% of annual hours, 10.3 million hours) — https://www.ccomptes.fr/fr/publications/le-temps-denseignement-perdu-par-les-eleves-au-college (⚠️ figure restituted via Le Café pédagogique and vie-publique.fr).
3. SNES-FSU, survey of 1,033 schools, published on 7 September 2026: 53% of public middle and high schools with at least one missing teacher, 69% including the whole staff — taken up by AFP and France 24 (https://www.france24.com/fr/info-en-continu/20260907-rentr%C3%A9e-toujours-des-profs-manquants-dans-53-des-coll%C3%A8ges-et-lyc%C3%A9es-selon-le-premier-syndicat-du-second-degr%C3%A9).
4. DEPP (ministère de l'Éducation nationale), 2023-2024 statistics: 9% of hours not delivered in public secondary education; 10% in high schools in 2024-2025 — https://archives-statistiques-depp.education.gouv.fr/Default/doc/SYRACUSE/56329/.
5. DEPP, information note of August 2026: pupils per class — 19.6 in REP+, 20.4 in REP, 23.0 outside priority education, 23.4 in private schools under contract — https://www.education.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/document/depp-ni-2026-38pdf-519892.pdf.
6. Le Parisien, 8 October 2026: 375 schools with classes suspended, 224 full closures — https://www.leparisien.fr/societe/mobilisation-lyceenne-les-cours-totalement-ou-partiellement-suspendus-dans-375-etablissements-scolaires-ce-jeudi-08-10-2026-JUBIOWSD7VFDRABDSAD2FIQCAQ.php.
7. AFP, taken up by La Libre Belgique, 9 October 2026: 141 high schools still closed — https://www.lalibre.be/international/europe/2026/10/09/france-141-lycees-restent-fermes-vendredi-en-raison-de-la-mobilisation-des-eleves-WDZ4WUVLTJDTHNVSGQBIDDMXRE/.
8. Lycée movement: began on 17-18 September 2026 (Saint-Exupéry high school, Créteil); 1,027 schools affected on 1 October; 266,000 to 450,000 demonstrators on 6 October.
Social sorting
9. Cour des comptes, annual public report, 19 March 2025: “at equal marks and equal preferences, the decisions of educational teams over-determine the orientation of young people from disadvantaged families towards the vocational track” — https://www.ccomptes.fr/sites/default/files/2025-03/20250319-RPA2025-volume1-orientation-college-lycee.pdf (⚠️ quotation restituted via vie-publique.fr).
10. DEPP, RERS 2026, sheet 7.11 (2024 data): 52.0% of CPGE students have a reference parent who is a senior professional or in a higher intellectual profession.
11. Ministère de l'Éducation nationale, 2023-2024 data, via the Observatoire des inégalités, 27 February 2025: ENS — 64.9% of the children of senior professionals, 2.0% of the children of manual workers — https://www.inegalites.fr/Enseignement-superieur-comment-evolue-la-composition-sociale-des-filieres.
12. DEPP, L'état de l'École 2025, sheet 33: 91% of the children of senior professionals in the general and technological second year, against 49% of the children of unskilled manual workers; 22% leaving without a diploma against 3% — DEPP, L'état de l'École 2025, sheet 33.
13. DEPP, RERS 2026, sheet 4.03 and sheet 4.02: private schools under contract — 44% highly advantaged against 22% in the public sector, 16% disadvantaged against 39%; Paris, 36.8% of secondary schooling in the private sector — https://www.education.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/document/4-les-eleves-du-second-degrepdf-519285.pdf.
14. DEPP, information note 25.52, September 2025: spending per pupil — €10,450 in middle school, €13,020 in LEGT, €14,700 in LP, €19,070 in CPGE.
15. MENESR, Parcoursup 2025 admissions report, October 2025: 980,000 candidates; offer rate 96.5% (general baccalaureate), 89.4% (technological), 79.6% (vocational) — https://www.enseignementsup-recherche.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/2025-10/bilan-de-la-proc-dure-d-admission-2025-38034.pdf.
The minister
16. Mediapart, 12 January 2024: revelation on the schooling of the three children of Amélie Oudéa-Castéra, minister of Education from 11 January to 8 February 2024, at the private group Stanislas (Paris 6th), after a spell at the public school Littré.
17. Libération, 14 January 2024: public denial by the children's former primary school teacher on the absence of replacement at Littré.
18. Sénat, written question no. 09883, ministerial answer of 16 May 2024: IGÉSR report on Stanislas delivered in August 2023, 15 recommendations.
Police violence
19. IGPN, 2024 figures: 914 investigations in total, 428 of them for use of force (45%); 90 proposed sanctions and 85 referrals to a disciplinary board.
20. French press, September-October 2026: Saint-Ouen-l'Aumône (Val-d'Oise) — Eden, 14, “Cougar” grenade-launcher round in the face on 30 September 2026, police officer placed under formal investigation; Tours (16, one eye lost); Lens (15, hand torn off); Metz (IGPN investigation). At least ten referrals to the IGPN; Défenseur des droits asked to intervene.
Public finances and government
21. INSEE, end of the first half of 2026: public debt 119.0% of GDP, or €3,595.5 billion.
22. European Commission / Council, recommendations of 21 January 2025: France under the excessive deficit procedure. Public deficit 2025: 5.1% of GDP.
23. Rating agencies: S&P A+ (29 May 2026), Fitch A+, Moody's Aa3, negative outlook.
24. French governments: Attal; Barnier, censured on 4 December 2024; Bayrou, brought down on 8 September 2025; Lecornu, appointed on 9 September 2025, resigning twenty-seven days later, reappointed on 10 October 2025; 2026 budget adopted on 2 February 2026 after two motions of censure were rejected.
The video
25. “Mouvement lycéen”, channel Phyzolof, published on 3 October 2026, 116 seconds, 261,188 views, 27,950 “likes” — transcript read in full: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/9HwcDSDBIhE.
⚠️ Reservations published, because they must be.
(1) Several figures from the Cour des comptes and the Sénat are taken from identified secondary reports, not from the original document: they are flagged as such in the bibliography.
(2) We could not establish the social composition of the IUTs, the engineering schools and the IEPs, nor the share of pupils coming from REP/REP+ high schools in elite tracks, nor the school-avoidance rate measured in Paris. We do not estimate them: we do not write them.
(3) The video's sentence on the “European average of 21 pupils” is inaccurate, and we say so. We take up no figure because it suits us.