in Ile-de-France, postponements of the start of the school year studied on a case-by-case basis “if necessary”

In Île-de-France, the postponements of the start of the 2024 school year will be studied on a case-by-case basis “if necessary”, due to the holding of the Paralympic Games at different sites in the region, according to information from franceinfo on Monday.

>> Paris 2024: is the promise of the Ecological Games credible?

If the Paris 2024 Olympic Games will take place in the heart of summer, the same will not be true of the Paralympic Games which will take place from Wednesday 28 August to Sunday 8 September, i.e. between the end of summer and the beginning of the scheduled school year for Monday, September 2, 2024. For one week, millions of students will be on the transport along with hundreds of thousands of spectators, athletes, organizers and officials. Games in the middle of the new school year pose a security problem, with an influx of tourists and sites and convoys to protect. And transport risks being saturated with reserved lanes and tests in the middle of the city. “We will have a traffic problem“, we acknowledge to the Ministry of Transport.

“The answer has not yet been found”

In concrete terms, how will the boarding school located in the district of the Olympic village in Saint-Ouen or the high school near the media village in Le Bourget, in Seine-Saint-Denis be organised? Set aside so far, the issue is starting to agitate the leaders of the state. According to a minister in charge of the file, “the topic will return, because the answer hasn’t been found yet“.

Paris mayor Anne Hidalgo does not want a postponed return. National Education Minister Pap Ndiaye also does not want a postponement. His services sequestered the Higher Education Council which must pronounce itself on Wednesday 17 May. According to information from franceinfo, this notice must authorize the rectors of the academy to postpone the start of the school year on a case-by-case basis “,only for establishments around the Olympic venues, and if necessary“, hammers the entourage of the Minister of Education. They will be local decisions.

Everyone knew from the beginning that the issue of conflicting dates between the Paralympic Games and the start of the school year was going to be a problem. According to the organizers of Paris 2024, the dates of the Games are “a proposal from the Organizing Committee in agreement with the State and the City, then definitively validated by the International Paralympic Committee“. Not having anticipated the problems, the various communities assure that this cross-calendar will allow schoolchildren to see the competitions thanks to the dozens of places reserved by the city of Paris or by the departments.