Corsica will remain it for a long time the only region of France where the secondary schools remain closed doors ? While the young French have gradually taken the path of schools, colleges, and high schools with phase 2 of the déconfinement, in the island, the return of approximately 22 400 middle and high school students will go through the box... justice. The prefect and the rector of the academy have decided to go on the offensive and seize the administrative tribunal to decide this question, which has already garnered a few exchanges of courtesy between the State and the elected officials of the region.
At the center of the discord : the decision of the community of Corsica (CdC) to maintain closed the 47 secondary schools of the island, which it owns. Despite a ranking in the green of two departments the islanders on the map epidemiological coronavirus, middle and high schools should not reopen their doors until September. The regional assembly has decided to do so through a resolution passed on 7 may within the framework of a plan of exit of the containment as defined by the executive council, chaired by the nationalist Gilles Simeoni. In question : the risk of re-judicata for the time inopportune " in the health field and inapplicable to the material plane ".
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"This situation breaks the principle of equality"
Except that the prefect and the rector does not hear it of this ear. If they believe that " the top priority remains the safety and security of students and staff ", Franck Robine and Julie Benetti believe that this singular situation " breaks the principle of equality ". In other words, it is high time that colleges and high schools could accommodate new students. "School leaders' request and the parents, on the principle of free choice, express the need, specify the prefecture. Especially, for many students, this feedback is an absolute necessity. "
The prefect and the president go even further and do not hesitate to blame the elected officials for a "lack of knowledge of the respective powers" of the State and of the territorial community in the management of the institutions. Since the first special status of Corsica, dates from 1982, the prerogatives relating to colleges and high schools have been, in effect, progressively shared between the State and the region. The ministry of national Education has, through the academy, the competence in the field of teaching. For its part, the territorial community has the walls, awards grants of operating authority on personal techniques. However, without the participation of these agents, in charge of the maintenance of the premises, no establishment will not reopen in compliance with the health protocol enacted by the ministry. Which is to say, on the side of the rectory, that this decision of the CdC is a "hindrance" to the right to education, as well as, from the beginning of the déconfinement, approximately 15 % of the middle island had the intention to resume classes, according to the academy. The services of the rector's office is even said to be ready to review "case by case" of the reopening of schools, in consultation with the region.
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A remedy without effect ?
in the Face of a no-to receive the executive on the island, the common front representatives of the State took the form of a referral. Filed before the administrative tribunal of Bastia, this action is supposed to mark the disapproval of the national Education in the face of the position of the elected representatives of the territorial community. In the line of fire : the deliberation of the Corsican Assembly, the prefect of which, to the origin of the procedure, requests the annulment in the context of the control of legality.
Enough to allow students to find their classrooms before the end of the school year ? Nothing is less sure. Despite this firm position of the State, to this day this request is not the subject of any request of suspension in emergency of the decision of the territorial community. To believe the services of the administrative tribunal, the audiencement of the case may not intervene before a few months... " If the date of the judgment is not set before the end of the school year, this procedure will have no impact, sliding a connoisseur of the administrative courts. The examination of the appeal will likely be set after the return to school in September, once students have taken the course. "
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A sword-stroke in the water ? The hypothesis is more likely. So, in the corridors of the territorial community, we speak without fear of a "diplomatic act" of the prefecture, to mark his opposition, without any real effect. History, without a doubt, not to give the impression of wanting to twist the arm to the elect retoquant their deliberation. The middle and high school students of Corsica is not expected to return anytime soon the way to their classrooms...
