Question 8306 — teaching

Summary

Ms. Mathilde Feld draws the attention of the Minister of State, Minister of National Education, Higher Education and Research, to the unsuitability of French school buildings to the challenges of climate change. As shown by Météo France data published in June 2025, heatwave episodes are increasing and intensifying. Thus, Météo France has counted 26 over the last fifteen years (2010 to June 2025), which is more than in the preceding six decades (24 from 1947 to 2009). From the 1950s to the 1970s, there was an average of one national heat wave every four years, while over the past decade that average has climbed to about two per year. Furthermore, the situation will only get worse, Météo France estimating that the number of days of heat waves will be multiplied by 5 in a France at + 2.7°C and by 10 in France at +4°C. It is also this last scenario which must be taken into account, since according to the hypotheses retained by the Government based on the work established by the National Council for Ecological Transition presented on May 4, 2023, the temperature should increase on average by 4°C by the end of the century in mainland France (an increase exceeding the global average established at 3.2°C according to the latest IPCC report). In France, 12 million students are accommodated in 60,000 school buildings in public and private education under contract, spread across the entire territory. Public school buildings represent 30% of the total public real estate assets and half of the built assets of local authorities. However, according to data from the Low Energy Buildings Observatory (BBC), the proportion of school buildings meeting low consumption standards is only 14%. Therefore, 86% of the park should be renovated to achieve satisfactory and efficient energy performance levels during heatwaves. According to the National Institute for Research and Safety (INRS), above “30°C for sedentary activity and 28°C for work requiring physical activity, heat can constitute a risk” for health. These risks are still more worrying for young students, more vulnerable to extreme heat (particularly up to nursery school). To date, an extremely large number of situations where temperatures exceed 30 degrees have been reported. The seriousness of the situation even pushed the Ministry of National Education to decide this Tuesday, July 1, 2025, to close nearly 1,350 public schools. Sunday June 29 evening, during a meeting interministerial crisis, the Minister recalled the measures to be taken in schools during extreme heat, which could go as far as authorizing children to be kept at home. This positioning, beyond placing the responsibility for the Government's inaction on parents, also poses a serious problem of equal treatment of children. Not all families have spacious, cool and comfortable homes. air-conditioned. Public school must be a refuge for all, making it possible to overcome the social inequalities exacerbated in the private sphere. So what about long-term school building renovation and adaptation policies that benefit everyone? The rehabilitation plan for 40,000 schools and establishments, announced in September 2023 by the President of the Republic, seems to have been sacrificed on the altar of rigor budgetary. The “Green Fund”, partly earmarked for this renovation, is undergoing drastic cuts even though it is popular with local stakeholders, including state representatives. Many local authorities, starting with small and medium-sized municipalities, do not have the means to finance the renovation of aging and sometimes dilapidated school buildings. Several parliamentary and administrative reports announce financing needs of 40 or 50 billion euros in ten years, in addition to the State subsidies annually granted to communities. In an interview given to the newspaper Le Monde on June 30, 2025, Magali Reghezza-Zitt, geographer specializing in adaptation to climate change and former member of the High Council for the Climate, summarizes as follows: “Rather than a logic of prevention, we are in reactive and curative measures which are essential in an emergency situation but which no longer make it possible to reduce the threat of global warming and even less to hope, in the long term, to survive in decent conditions. [...] In all cases, action against climate change always costs less than inaction and the benefits of adaptation are numerous 'for health, quality of life, food or energy poverty.' She him therefore asks what measures it intends to implement to guarantee a constructive, committed and long-term policy for adapting school buildings to the challenges of climate change.

Machine translation from French. The official text remains authoritative.

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