Overview
- New education minister Édouard Geffray set three priorities in his first interview: academic standards, social and school inequalities, and student health.
- The 2026 draft budget foresees roughly 4,000 net teacher post reductions, which he said is fewer than the 8,000–9,000 that demographic trends alone would imply.
- He projected an average of 21 pupils per primary class at the start of the 2026 school year, described as the lowest average ever recorded in France.
- The teacher pathway is being overhauled with entry competitions moved to bac+3 and more than 8,000 paid trainee civil-servant positions funded in the 2026 plan.
- Hiring for AESH classroom aides slows to 1,200 posts versus 2,000 last year, with Geffray citing budget limits, a thin candidate pool and low job attractiveness, while signaling new recruitment of school psychologists and nurses.