Under fire from criticism from the left, LR president of Île-de-France Valérie Pécresse defended her assessment on Thursday on the state of the 468 high schools in Ile-de-France, rejecting accusations of underinvestment, while the region is at the heart of high school mobilization. During a session of the regional council, Valérie Pécresse highlighted the investments made in high schools since her arrival at the head of the regional executive in 2015, attributing responsibility to her socialist predecessors for the poor state of school buildings denounced by high school students.
“In 2016, we inherited a colossal educational debt, 200 totally dilapidated high schools, a left which had not anticipated the baby boom of the 2000s,” she said. “Since then, the Region has invested 6.6 billion euros, an XXL high school plan 2017-2030, the largest investment plan ever carried out in France by a community. The dilapidation of high schools has been divided by 4.5,” she added, citing a budget of 1.9 billion euros released for high schools in 2026, or “4,100 euros per high school student.”
“The region which spent the least per high school student”
A sign of the excitement of the executive, attacked on one of its major skills, the regional council adopted in the afternoon a deliberation on the "Regional high school plan 2017-2030" whose article 1 approves "all the measures undertaken by the Region in favor of Ile-de-France high schools since 2017" as well as the "actions taken following the high school movements" of 2026.
“The forecast budget for high schools for 2026 is 349 million euros in operation and 786 million euros in investment. We cannot mix the two, and Île-de-France is the region which spent the least per high school student between 2021 and 2023 with 2,380 euros compared to a national average of 3,188 euros,” Céline Malisé, president of the communist group, denounced to AFP, relying on data from the Ministry of National Education.
In response, the vice-president in charge of high schools, James Chéron, detailed at length, supporting photos and department by department, the renovation operations already carried out as well as the amounts committed establishment by establishment. Evoking a “scandalous panegyric”, the socialist Yannick Trigance contrasted a very different reality, citing “unusable toilets, underheated rooms (...), collapsing ceilings and falling windows”. “You are at the origin of the high school movement in Île-de-France,” accused LFI deputy Paul Vannier for his part.
An envelope of 10 million euros
Faced with the drop in state credits, the Île-de-France Region, which welcomes more than one in five French high school students, has adopted a resolution demanding an equivalent share of the national envelope of 4 billion euros of reduced-rate loans intended to finance the renovation of high schools. It also released 10 million euros to rehabilitate some 170 degraded high schools and pay the security costs necessary for security, where gates have been destroyed.
The debates were tense around a measure carried out by the executive, the elimination of various regional aids for sport, culture, driving licenses or transport allocated to students sanctioned by the disciplinary council for acts of violence or degradation. Valérie Pécresse defended this orientation, also invoking the “killer pays” principle. “I wrote to all the public prosecutors in Île-de-France to tell them that the Region would take civil action in all situations of degradation or violence (...) The perpetrators or their families, if they are minors, must reimburse,” she declared.
Cameras inside high schools
“Depriving a young person of access to culture, sport and transport means cutting them off from the essential tools for their personal development and social integration,” denounced the elected environmentalist Marie Attalah, referring to a “double penalty”. The communist opposition contacted the prefect to challenge the legality of the deliberation. Another particularly controversial measure adopted: the possibility granted to high school principals targeted in their enclosure by mortar fire or outbreaks of fire to install video protection cameras in circulation areas.
The measure also provides for cameras “inside high schools in which the buildings (sanitary facilities, elevators, doors, radiators, false ceilings, etc.) are subject to recurring damage.” “Invoking damage is not enough to authorize any taking of images, contrary to respect for the privacy of students and their dignity,” the communist opposition strongly contested.
