The number of pupils is falling from year to year in Parisian nursery and elementary schools. Up to 4,000 schoolchildren are indeed missing for this start of the 2022 school year compared to last year, according to figures from the Paris Academy confirmed on Monday, November 21.

If the drop is less steep than at the start of the 2021 school year – where no less than 6,000 students were missing compared to 2020 – the number of pupils continues to fall in Parisian nursery and elementary schools. In ten years, the capital has thus lost 28,000 students, as confirmed by the Academy of Paris.

An established trend

“At the start of the school year, there were 108,538 students in public schools in Paris. That is 10,000 less than two years ago”, notes the Academy, which predicts that the drop “should be less marked in the next three years”, with around 3,000 fewer students each year, for a total of “ months 9,000 students over three years.

And proof that the trend is quite entrenched, all the districts of the capital are concerned, with an exception in the 6th arrondissement, which gains… two students. In detail, it is in the center of Paris that the phenomenon is most visible, particularly in the 1st, 7th and 9th arrondissements, which respectively show a drop of 9.3%, 7.6% and 7% of their students.

Whose fault is it ?

Several reasons can explain the phenomenon, starting with the fall in the birth rate, which reaches -0.9% in the capital in 2021 according to INSEE figures, against 0.2% on average in metropolitan France.

For the municipal majority, other considerations come into play, as evidenced by Patrick Bloche, the deputy mayor of Paris in charge of education, in the JDD. The elected official mentions in particular “the reduction in the private rental supply due to the development of seasonal rentals” very strong in Paris Center in particular, “the pressure on real estate despite the control of rents” but also “the desire to go and live at the campaign” since the health crisis.

But these realities alone are not enough to explain such a trend, according to the opposition, which especially believes that Paris no longer attracts. “The exodus continues”, for example immediately reacted Aurélien Véron, elected Paris Center, member of the Changer Paris group, which parallels the drop in the number of students in Parisian schools and the flight of families.

“The numbers are constantly falling”, protests his group of elected officials in a press release, specifying the reasons which precisely make families flee according to them: “disastrous management, taxes, ruined, insecurity, degraded living environment “.

A political posture shared by some Parisians. “Why does Paris have 4,100 fewer pupils in nursery and elementary schools at the start of the 2022 school year than in 2021? “, asks one of them on Twitter, which evokes the” expensive life “, between” an expensive parking lot “or” an increase in the property tax “.

Why does Paris have 4,100 fewer pupils in nursery and elementary schools at the start of the 2022 school year than in 2021? An expensive life, expensive parking, repeated tickets And now a property tax increase of more than 50%. Enough is enough !

—Dominique HAMDAD-VITRÉ (@HAMDADVITR1) November 20, 2022

What is certain is that each year, the capital is emptied of its inhabitants, and this, long before the health crisis. Between 2007 and 2017, Apur (Parisian urban planning workshop) already noted a “slight drop in the number of families in Paris”, with an increasingly marked preference for the municipalities of Greater Paris. Still well served but where real estate is much cheaper.

However, the Académie de Paris defends itself from guaranteeing quality learning for those who remain, and promises that “despite the drop of 28,000 students in ten years, the allocation has nevertheless increased by 222 jobs since 2012”.

And this, as the Rectorate explains, due to the “duplication of Grande section, CP and CE1 classes in priority education”, the “cap at 24 of the number of students in Grande section, CP and CE1 in non-education priority” and the general improvement of the supervision rate, with “less than 20 students on average per class at the start of the 2022 school year”.