Concretely, the students will find their way back to school on Monday, August 29. The summer holidays will be shortened and the autumn and relaxation holidays will be doubled, both for kindergartens, and for primary and secondary schools.
That’s for the theory. But in reality, not all French schools will follow this schedule.
This is the case of three schools: the athenaeum of Shape and two free schools of Jewish faith. These introduced a derogation.
La Libre Belgique explains the reasons. The athénée has made two requests: to shift the Christmas holidays by one week and to make the spring holidays coincide with Easter Monday. Questioned in Parliament, Caroline Désir, the Minister of Education, accepted one of the two requests: “We have informed the athénée of our willingness to satisfy the request for adjustment of the dates of the winter vacation, but also our subject to the adaptation of the dates of the spring break”.
If the athenaeum of Shape demanded to shift the Christmas holidays, the two schools of the Jewish faith asked to advance the date of the start of the school year by one week and to reduce the All Saints’ holiday by one week.
The reason: to compensate for long weekends during the months of September and October which are linked to religious holidays. Response from Caroline Désir: “These adjustments are consistent with the types of derogations which were already granted by my predecessors in the old legal framework. The methods of alternation have been weighted to formulate a one-off reorganization as close as possible to school rhythms”.
An answer that left some deputies dubious… while the new school calendar will not be followed to the letter by all French-speaking schools.