![Édouard Geffray, ministre de l'Éducation nationale, quitte le Conseil des ministres réuni au palais de l'Élysée à Paris, en France, le 6 mai 2026.
[Henrique Campos / Hans Lucas / Hans Lucas via AFP]](/cdn-cgi/image/onerror=redirect,width=640,height=640,format=webp/https://storage.googleapis.com/uploads.mongoosehq.com/url/media/131834388/e1d6d88ffca645c2f081f7397f2312797ab732bf42c106a002325151ab0ed02c)
Overview
- The Education Ministry's rentrée circular, published Thursday in the official bulletin, tells schools to put mastery of language and scientific reasoning at the center of teaching from primary through lycée.
- For the 2026 baccalauréat, France’s national secondary school diploma, examiners will score writing quality across all subjects using a common orthography scale now being developed by the inspection service.
- Education Minister Édouard Geffray said a poorly written exam paper should not earn the diploma because it misstates a student's true level.
- The circular bans fill‑in‑the‑blank worksheets except for special needs and pushes handwriting and full‑sentence drafting to boost memory and complex thought, which the minister says also helps students use AI tools with real autonomy.
- Snes‑FSU and SNUipp‑FSU said the text arrived without any dialogue with staff representatives and called it a communications exercise rather than a plan built with teachers.