50,000 empty boarding places? “It’s crazy when you think about it,” says Gabriel Attal casually. Visiting the Parc Impérial high school in Nice this Monday, April 22, the Prime Minister pledged to “place many more young people in boarding schools”. The objective? Fight against violence between minors, and in particular, “prevent them from drifting”, according to the formula of the tenant of Matignon.
It must be said that since his time at National Education, Gabriel Attal has made the return to authority a priority. Didn’t he declaim during his general policy speech on January 30: “You break, you repair. You dirty, you clean. You challenge authority, we teach you to respect it”? But this Monday, by suggesting more frequent recourse to boarding schools, Gabriel Attal unearthed an old sea serpent.
Boarding schools of excellence, ERS… The vestiges of the Sarkozy era
Boarding school? At the Elysée, Nicolas Sarkozy made it his hobby horse. In 2010, his Minister of National Education, Luc Chatel, launched “boarding schools of excellence”. Establishments open to children from disadvantaged backgrounds supposed to allow them to climb the sacrosanct social elevator. At the same time, “educational reintegration establishments”, known as ERS, saw the light of day.
Unlike the “boarding schools of excellence”, which welcome “deserving” candidates based on their applications, the ERS are intended for “polyexcluded” students aged 13 to 16, described as “disruptive”. Minors are placed there temporarily and by judicial decision only. “Reformative institution” for some, “courageous response to a real problem” for others, the ERS is floundering in its infancy. According to a report from the Ministry of National Education published in 2012, out of 1,500 to 2,000 “polyexcluded” students, only 140 had been integrated into these establishments.
But a year later, the Chatel system, which was beginning to prove itself, was unraveled by Vincent Peillon, Minister of National Education under François Hollande. Too expensive, he judged at the time. But above all, too unequal, boarding schools of excellence favoring, according to him, students from wealthy backgrounds. Exit the ERS, and now make way for the transformation of boarding schools “of excellence for a few” under Nicolas Sarkozy, into “establishments of success for all”.
Blanquer, the minister who tried to dust off the boarding school
Having just moved to Rue de Varenne, Jean-Michel Blanquer threw a wrench into the pond by announcing his “grand plan” called “boarding schools of the 21st century” in 2018. The project has the merit of being ambitious: reconnecting with the age of the gold of boarding schools, by creating sectors of excellence in around a hundred high schools. Sarkozy nostalgia? At all ! Emmanuel Macron’s Minister of National Education wants to dust off the image of boarding schools, by creating establishments where “rigor and happiness” rhyme. A framework “to sleep well and work well, and possibilities that we do not necessarily have at home, in terms of sport, culture”, then pleads the former rector of Créteil.
The “Blanquer-style” boarding school must therefore act as a booster for academic success, particularly for students from rural backgrounds. The minister notably defends the “republican mix”. And insists: boarding schools are “not at all” intended only for students from Rep (disadvantaged neighborhoods, Editor’s note), ensuring that only the “motivation” of the students will be taken into account, “not the level”. It is clear that the lexicon has little to do with that of the current Prime Minister.
Towards a return of ERS?
This Monday, rather than portraying boarding school as a social elevator, Gabriel Attal presents the system as a solution to stem the violence which cements the relationships between young people. “The first victim of youth violence is youth themselves,” the Prime Minister argued last Thursday. Before committing this Monday to placing more young people in boarding schools, including during school vacation periods. “Many overwhelmed parents could see an interest in it,” says the head of government.
If this speech appears to be a breaking point in the rhetoric previously used to convince people of the benefit of resorting to boarding placement, it is one response among others to the tragedies that have occurred in recent weeks. In Viry-Châtillon, where a 15-year-old teenager died after being attacked by a gang of teenagers. In Montpellier, where a 13-year-old girl, called a “kouffar” (“unbeliever” in Arabic), was beaten up in front of her school. In Paris, where a high school principal resigned after receiving death threats. In the four corners of France, where hundreds of high schools have received threats of attack.
Thus, Gabriel Attal relaunches the debate on placement in boarding schools by presenting it as a shield against falling into delinquency, making it possible to curb the aggressiveness of young people. “Preventive” internments therefore, unlike Nicolas Sarkozy’s ERS, which were more akin to a form of punishment.